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Slip, slop, slap. It was a cartoon seagull wearing shorts, t-shirt and a hat that famously urged sun-loving Australians in the 1980s to protect themselves from damaging ultraviolet rays. | By Phil MercerBBC News, Sydney
While sunblock has shielded generations from harm, it is also being used to safeguard the health and vitality of Australian grapes as the nation reflects on another scorching year when temperature records continued to tumble.
At Tyrrell's vineyard in the Hunter Valley, 165km north of Sydney, the midday sun beats down on some of Australia's oldest vines. They date back to the late 1800s, and have thrived in tough conditions.
The quality of the vintage depends not only on the sun and the soil, but the temperature. Very hot weather can inflict serious damage, and too much heat can cause the berries to shrivel or suffer sunburn.
"You put sunscreen on your kids when they go out in the sun, so we put it on our grapevines. That just goes on like a normal spray," says Bruce Tyrrell, the chief executive of Tyrrell's Wines.
"Your vineyard gets this funny white-blue colour, and you look on the berries and there is a little coating on them. It is just like putting sunscreen on and it gives it some protection."
It's not only science that is helping to protect the crop, but also sound husbandry in a region where temperatures can exceed 45C (113F).
"It is a matter of having your vineyard laid out to handle your conditions," Mr Tyrrell tells the BBC.
"We plant north-south rows, so that you don't have the western sun directly on the fruit."
Heatproofing businesses
Scientists have predicted that climate change will make heatwaves in Australia more frequent and severe - and when the mercury rockets, so do the economic costs.
When Melbourne sweltered through a four-day hot spell in January 2014, it is estimated that firms in the city lost about 10m Australian dollars ($8m; £5m) in revenue each day.
A subsequent survey found around 60% of businesses expect that more regular heatwaves over the next 20 years would hit their profits.
Prof Christopher Wright from the University of Sydney Business School explains that many industries would have to heatproof their operations, including agriculture, retail and insurance companies.
"They are thinking about how can we insure for extreme events like bushfires that are precipitated by heatwaves, so they have to model for an increasingly unpredictable climate.
"Large shopping centres are looking at dramatic increases in electricity costs as they try to increase air conditioning," he says.
"Heatwaves are becoming longer, and they are becoming more severe, and that becomes hard to manage depending in which business sector you are in.
"So my own take is that a lot of businesses are probably fairly unprepared for what is coming," he adds.
Health warning
Heatwaves cause more deaths each year in Australia than any other natural disaster, and they pose particular risks to the bedrock of the economy: the workforce.
In November, the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) issued a health warning to staff working outdoors across the state of New South Wales as extreme heat took hold.
When temperatures exceed 38C (100F), work is automatically halted because of the risk of heat rashes, cramps and exhaustion.
"Our union has produced a detailed policy for working in heat," says ETU secretary Steve Butler. "Extreme heat can cause a range of health problems, from the uncomfortable to the potentially deadly."
Two years ago, Sydney experienced its hottest day on record when temperatures passed 45C. It was a punishing time for those not able to seek air-conditioned relief, as a crushing heat smothered the nation's biggest city.
Many shoppers stayed at home, but it was workers who had to bear the brunt of the conditions.
"It made people feel lethargic," says Russell Zimmerman, the head of the Australian Retailers Association.
"There were trials getting people to and from work. Obviously you'll have people who go by public transport. Invariably on a really hot day you get some kind of problem with public transport, be it rails buckling or vehicles breaking down."
Shaped by climate
Yet, this is a land of extremes. And while there is disagreement about man's influence on the climate, there is a shared belief that Australia has thrived in the face of unrelenting environmental challenges, from drought to floods, to bushfires and a burning sun.
A nation's prosperity could now depend on how it adapts to a warmer future.
"The tyranny of extreme climate has shaped us," says Tim Harcourt from the University of New South Wales Business School.
"If Australia had a beautiful, temperate climate all-round, we'd be a very different people.
"We have faced great climate challenges through our history, and that is partly the way we shape our character and we shape our approach to the economy."
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Small print matters. Some of TalkTalk's millions of customers might have been angry enough to try to terminate their contracts when the telecommunications company first revealed details of a major data security breach last month. | Kamal AhmedBusiness editor@bbckamalon Twitter
But, with contracts for mobile, fixed line, broadband and television services of up to two years (always worth looking at those few lines at the bottom of the paperwork) customers found they couldn't leave TalkTalk without incurring hefty costs.
When Dido Harding, the chief executive, first announced two weeks ago that customers would only be able to leave if they could show a "direct impact" on their bank account - a pretty high bar - investors heaved a sigh of relief and TalkTalk's share price bounced up.
It was up again this morning - by more than 12% - as the half-year results revealed that TalkTalk was still expected to make £300m profit before tax this year. And that revenues were up 6%.
Yes, churn (that's the number of customers leaving compared with the number of customers joining) was up slightly, but when I interviewed Ms Harding she certainly suggested there was little evidence of a mass exodus.
"It's too early to tell how many customers will leave," she told me.
"What I can tell you is that the early signs are encouraging.
"We of course saw an immediate step up, a spike, in churn or customers cancelling their direct debits but actually after a few days we saw many of those customers reinstating their direct debits again."
Of course, as Ms Harding went on to say, time will tell. And let's not forget, TalkTalk's share price has fallen by more than 30% in a month.
Furthermore, these half-year results do not include the three weeks since the cyber-attack.
So, beyond the £35m up-front cost announced today, there is little visibility about the actual customer impact.
We will not know that until the company announces its full-year results next spring.
'The crime of our era'
Ms Harding said it was impossible to say whether TalkTalk would ever be the victim of a criminal cyber-attack in the future.
"TalkTalk takes our customers security incredibly seriously," Ms Harding said.
"Clearly we've been spending more and more on security over the last few years, and a lot more over the course of the last three weeks and I expect to do ever more.
"The reality is that we have to keep building our security walls higher and higher, because these cyber criminals are building longer and longer ladders.
"This is not just about TalkTalk. This is the crime of our era, and we're committed to doing everything in our power to protect our customers."
TalkTalk is the "challenger brand" in the telecommunications market, up against the major players BT, Sky and Virgin.
And, as such, losing a lot of customers was not an enticing prospect.
Ms Harding took a calculated bet that by being very public about the cyber-attack, customers would at least see a chief executive who took this issue seriously.
"Three weeks ago we had a live criminal attack and a very credible ransom demand and I think we did exactly the right thing to go out early and warn our customers so that we could help make them safer, and they could protect themselves," she said.
"I think we did both the right and the responsible thing and I'm personally humbled by the number of customers who have personally taken the time to contact me directly, and tell me just that."
Some believe she went public too soon, before really knowing the impact of the breach on all of TalkTalk's four million customers.
When I asked her at the time if all TalkTalk's customer data were encrypted, she admitted that the "awful truth" was she didn't know.
Today I asked Ms Harding the same question. Her answer was rather more delphic.
"I can confirm that we're compliant with all encryption requirements for the industry, but actually it's not just about encryption," she said.
"So one of the reasons why none of our customers' credit card details were stolen in a way that means they can be used is because they were more than encrypted.
"They were what's called obfuscated - obscured. So that nowhere in the system did we actually hold all of their credit card number.
"I absolutely understand why people want to know what is and isn't encrypted, but in some cases you want to do more than encrypt data."
The TalkTalk cyber-attack has not been as calamitous as initially feared by the company.
Ms Harding will be hoping that by the time customers come to renew their contracts, it will be something of a distant memory.
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I first tried the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset in the corner of a drab conference room in Las Vegas. I was convinced within seconds - despite feeling a little dizzy - that the device, held together by duct tape and hope, was destined for big things. | Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter
A year or so later, I met the same company, Oculus VR, in a (slightly) fancier room at the E3 gaming event in Los Angeles. "Hold this," I said, abruptly thrusting an audio cable into the hands of a young man who I thought was helping out - but was in fact the company's chief executive, Palmer Luckey. Again, I was blown away by the technology.
The next time I'd meet Luckey he'd be many, many millions of dollars richer, and Oculus would be a Facebook-owned company. But despite that very real marker of success, our topic of conversation each time we met remained the same: How are you going to convince people it's worth it? And isn't it going to be way too expensive?
"It isn't," he said the last time I asked him - but he's wrong.
At around $600 (plus a powerful PC) to get started, it is too expensive.
But money isn't the problem. The price of the technology will come down, and I'm still convinced virtual reality can be a success - but will it be Facebook's success? The company's strategy in this blossoming market is under question.
Best Buy retreat
This week we learned that demo stations set up in Best Buy - the huge US technology retail chain - are being rolled back due to poor foot traffic.
Facebook has described the move as a "seasonal" change, but suffice it to say, if they were shifting units they'd still be there. Instead, 200 of the 500 stations across the US are being shut down.
It's a potentially troubling moment for the company. Those who back virtual reality - myself included - always subscribed to the view that the key to selling them would be to get people to try it out. Once you've been in VR, we all assumed, you'd be hooked, and your wallet would follow soon after.
But that doesn't seem to have been the case. For whatever reason, too few people were bothering to even try the demo, let alone buy the product. There are a few theories for this, but the most likely, in my mind, was suggested by NPR's Molly Wood. The problem, she observed recently, might be the "pink-eye factor”.
She said: "It could be as simple as - and I have said this a million times - not wanting to go into a store and put something on your face that has been on a bunch of other people's faces."
But that wouldn't explain why the Oculus Rift is apparently performing poorly against its closest rival.
At the high-end of the virtual reality market, Oculus is up against HTC's Vive, an extremely capable device which has the involvement of Valve, the revered games publisher.
Good enough
Unofficial data (which I'm using as the companies themselves haven't shared sales figures with us) suggest that the Vive, despite being more expensive, is trouncing Oculus. Games research firm SuperData estimated that 420,000 Vive headsets were sold in 2016, compared to 250,000 sales for the Oculus Rift.
The lower end of the market is far more positive for Facebook. The Samsung Gear VR runs the Oculus VR experience, and that is by far and away the most popular device for VR on the market today, according to SuperData. But the hardware is all Samsung's and, for the most part, the headset itself (a simple plastic frame with lenses) has been given away with many smartphones.
The hope that the Gear VR might act as a kind of gateway drug into pricier VR experiences has yet to come to fruition.
Or maybe it has, just not for Oculus: the middle ground in VR is Sony's PlayStation VR, $399 and works with the PlayStation 4. It's more powerful than the Gear VR, but less powerful than the high-end headsets. But here's where Facebook should be worried - it seems to be good enough for most gamers.
And it's "good enough" that makes Facebook's strategy all the more precarious. Who is the Oculus Rift for, exactly? Super serious gamers are gravitating to the HTC Vive. Moderately serious gamers are happy with PlayStation VR. And at the budget end, the Gear VR, while popular now, faces a clear and present threat from Daydream, Google's new VR ecosystem which is far more open.
While Gear VR insists you have a Samsung smartphone, Daydream is designed to eventually work with any sufficiently powerful Android device (and it wouldn't be too tricky to make it work with Apple's iOS, either).
This compatibility comes at a price, mind - the Daydream View headset is far less comfortable, in my experience, than the Gear VR. But it's comfortable enough, and the little handheld controller provides a far more intuitive way of navigating the VR world than tapping blindly at the side of your head, a la Gear VR.
Here comes Hugo
So what are the next steps if Facebook is to get on top of this? I'd ask Palmer Luckey, but he's hard to reach at the moment - hidden away from public view after controversy surrounding his support of Donald Trump which involved funding a hateful trolling group.
He still works at the company, but Facebook and Oculus have repeatedly refused to tell me what his job actually is. (Palmer, if you're reading... my Twitter direct messages are open!)
The only public appearance he has made since that debacle has been to turn up in court where Facebook (unsuccessfully) defended against claims Oculus illegally used intellectual property belonging to games publisher Zenimax in the early days. A $500m bill for damages awaits, unless Facebook can win on appeal.
In a recent earnings call, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is still incredibly enthusiastic about VR and what it means for his network's future, called for patience from his investors. "It's not going to be really profitable for a while," he said.
He's never claimed otherwise, it has to be said. VR appears on Facebook's 10-year strategy, a slow burner with potentially big rewards.
But falling behind now would be a serious blow, which is why Zuckerberg has brought in Hugo Barra, a man most recently at Chinese firm Xiaomi, but before that, a major name at Google. He'll be in charge of Facebook's efforts in virtual reality from here on in.
In Barra, Oculus gains both a visionary and a safe pair of hands. He having worked on Android, today's most popular smartphone platform.
At Xiaomi, his role was to help the company expand globally - and while the company didn't, as some had expected, break into the US under Barra's watch, it did cement a reputation as making good quality devices.
He hasn't started his new role at Facebook just yet - he'll be at the company in a month or so, apparently excited to be back in California after a few years away.
When he starts his first day - I feel those two questions I've been asking Palmer Luckey still stand: Isn't it still too expensive? And more importantly - how are you going to convince people it's worth it?
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC and on Facebook
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Reddit boss Steve Huffman has told BBC News he supported the aims of controversial sub-Reddit WallStreetBets. | By James ClaytonNorth America technology reporter
A long-time fan of the group, he said he had been slow in spotting its effect on GameStop's huge share-price spike in January.
"I was actually a little late to the party, because I didn't realise that Reddit had leaked into the real world again", he said.
GameStop's share price ended up reaching nearly $500 (£350) before falling.
WallStreetBets had been hyping up the computer-game retailer's shares.
The idea was if enough Reddit users bought GameStop shares, they could drive up the price, hurting hedge funds who had bet against the company.
Some claimed the group had collectively manipulated the market.
But Reddit decided to leave it up.
"We were... trying to keep WallStreetBets online," Mr Huffman said.
When the media talks about the big social-media platforms - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram - Reddit is often ignored.
But as hedge funds learned during the GameStop share-price spike - ignore it at your peril.
Reddit likes to think of itself as different.
At its heart, it certainly feels more alternative.
Its system of upvoting content mean ideas either fly or die.
It's not called the front page of the internet for nothing.
Mr Huffman has also had to deal with another big story this year - conspiracy theories peddled by Donald Trump about electoral fraud.
"What do you do when the president doesn't live up to the ideals, like the principles of our country?" Mr Huffman said.
An influential sub-Reddit called TheDonald was instrumental in hyping up Mr Trump across the internet.
Reddit banned it last year.
Mr Huffman told BBC News it was the most difficult moderation decision he had had to make.
Huffman is one of handful of men in Silicon Valley - along with Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg - that make huge decisions on what we can and can't see on the internet.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
When did you first come across WallStreetBets?
So I've known about WallStreetBets for years.
WallStreetBets is, in fact, one of my guilty pleasures on Reddit.
How much was the group about having a laugh?
A lot of it, as I think it's the cornerstone to a lot of friendship and human experience.
At the end of the day, this community is fun and it's funny.
And obviously, there's some cohesion there, talking about the trades.
When did you start realising WallStreetBets was having an impact on GameStop's share price?
So I think I was actually a little late to this, because I've been on WallStreetBets for a while.
And they've been talking about GameStop for a while.
And so on WallStreetBets, there's often a couple of stocks or companies or positions that have their attention.
And so over the years, it's been Tesla.
It's been Virgin Galactic.
It's been Blackberry.
It's been different things.
And so, in my mind, I'm just browsing Reddit and OK, yeah, GameStop's got their infatuation right now.
So I was actually a little late to the party, because I didn't realise that Reddit had leaked into the real world again.
And so it was, I think, really at the the take off of the mania when I was like: "OK, this is a bigger one."
Then there was that crazy period where the GameStop share price went from $20 to $400. What was going through your mind at that point?
You know, I love reading business stories.
I love reading books about investors and their successes and failures.
So it's just a topic I'm interested in.
I just thought it was a fascinating story.
And it's such a smart thing to do.
And I, personally, have found it a fair thing to do.
So you were always supportive, like ideologically, of what the group was doing?
Yes, because I think if you've got one transaction where one group has taken an extreme position and then another group can see that opportunity that maybe they've overextended themselves.
Obviously, there's a lot of risk there.
But I think everybody goes in that situation aware of that risk.
The shares at one point got almost up to $500 a share. At that point, was there any pressure on you to maybe lock down WallStreetBets?
We faced that question, like that literal question: "Should you do something?"
But our motivation, or what we were trying to do in that situation, was actually the opposite - to keep WallStreetBets online.
So you decided: "This needs to stay up"?
The question of should it go down or not was a very fast conversation.
And we were, you know, confident that that community was well moderated and well within our content policy.
Are you proud of what WallStreetBets managed to achieve?
I am always, I think, proud when people do amazing things.
And so I think maybe pride isn't even the right word.
I think I'm happy or encouraged when humans come together to do something incredible.
Do you think that it was a David-and-Goliath story?
Oh, absolutely, because, you know, institutional investors have so much.
There's so many more resources in terms of knowledge, relationships, the ability to execute large trades.
No individual could have done this.
Although hedge funds wage war on each other all the time, we never see it.
And so to see a group of individuals kind of band together against some really well resourced institutions, I think that's an intriguing story from any angle.
Some people lost a lot of money. Do you feel any responsibility?
I think any trade, not just risky ones like WallStreetBets, has risk.
But it also has opportunity.
I think there are two things that are really important.
One is that individuals have that opportunity.
I don't think we as a society should be so paternal to say that, well: "This group is smart enough to make these decisions - but this group, you know, we should keep them out," because you're not just protecting them from risk, you're eliminating their participation in the gains.
Did the Capitol Hill riots make you reappraise the inherent goodness of the free internet?
I'd be lying if I say that thought hadn't crossed my mind.
But we've seen, I think, on Reddit, the power of people to do, I think, the right thing generally.
One of the ways we look at Reddit, one of our duties, is to make sure the volume of any particular viewpoint is in proportion to the number of people who actually have it.
And so that is to say we don't want a small number of loud people to have control beyond their numbers.
And I think on Reddit we've gotten pretty good at that.
I suppose you're wrestling with two things here. You don't want to get involved in censoring or overly censoring people?
We feel, I think, there's an enormous responsibility for getting that balance right.
And, you know, we are learning,
I think, along with everybody else, we do our very best because it's not just the right thing to do for our business - it's the right thing to do for our users.
And I think it's the right thing to do generally.
And, for example, the QAnon conspiracy theory, we saw that on Reddit and banned it three years ago, long before it metastasized online and in the real world.
Do you think you should have done more on TheDonald? That's one of the criticisms of Reddit that comes up a few times.
Look, TheDonald was a series of hard decisions.
And there's never a hard decision that I don't, upon reflection, wish we had made faster.
But I think there's a matter of reality here - the principle of free speech was designed specifically to protect political speech.
And so we went through a crisis not just at Reddit but in the United States and, I think, around the world of what do you do when the president doesn't live up to the ideals, like the principles of our country.
That's a real conflict.
And so I think there's no way around that conflict.
Is that the most difficult decision that you've had to make?
I think it might be, yes, because the other ones were more matters of getting the words right.
Other policy changes we've made over the years around, you know, violence or harassment or bullying or involuntary sexualisation, we always knew what our gut told us - what the right thing was.
And so those were sometimes complicated because we had to figure out how to get there and how to kind of balance all of our values.
But we always knew where we wanted to go.
I think with political speech, and in this particular moment, it was particularly challenging given the context of, like, the United States and the president of the United States being almost in conflict with each other.
Fake news, conspiracy theories, how do you stay on top of it?
Misinformation is another word for propaganda.
And propaganda is as old as politics.
This is not a new problem.
And so, we've faced this problem in different forms over pretty much our entire existence.
And so the solution, that we've seen, ultimately lies within people.
It lies within a free press.
It lies within access to information.
It lies within people being allowed to have good judgements and societal pressure to to be truthful, to behave well, all of these things.
Finally, there are some pretty niche sub-Reddits. What are the oddest ones you've come across?
Oh, my goodness.
BreadStapledToTrees is probably the weirdest one that I'm comfortable saying in an interview.
And it's as the name implies.
It's literally pictures of bread stapled to trees.
There's another, I think, favourite around the office, CatStandingUp, which is just pictures of cats standing up.
But that one is very strictly moderated.
So every comment within every post in that community has to be the single word "Cat".
Watch The News Explained - GameStop: to the Moon and Back on iPlayer
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A collision between two lorries, one carrying a digger, closed part of the M1 motorway for more than two hours. | The crash between junction 17 (Kilsby) and junction 16 (Daventry) closed three of the four lanes southbound.
Fire crews from three Northamptonshire stations and one from Warwickshire attended the crash, which happened at about 13:30 BST.
No injuries were reported, but pictures from a passing passenger showed one of the lorries was badly damaged.
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About 80 jobs are at risk at a food manufacturer and distributor in Enniskillen. | Adelie Ireland, which took over The Bite Group last year, has now gone into administration.
The company based in the Lackaboy Industrial Estate makes sandwiches and snack foods for convenience stores and retail outlets.
Staff were sent home after being informed of the news on Friday.
Administrators are examining the options for the future of the business.
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Amazon Prime's first UK original drama is to begin filming in Wales early next year in a joint commission with BBC Worldwide. | The Collection is set in the world of French haute couture after World War II and will be partly shot in Paris.
The project has received investment from the Pinewood Wales Investment Budget.
The series has been written and co-produced by Oliver Goldstick, creator of the TV series Ugly Betty.
Amazon Prime has previously revived the former BBC series Ripper Street.
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A boat beaches in a lonely cove at night, the crew hurriedly unloading its cargo of tea to waiting men and pack horses while armed lookouts stand guard against a surprise swoop by the revenue men. | By Tim BowlerBusiness reporter, BBC News
It may be a stereotypical image, but in the 18th Century, a cuppa was in such high demand that many Britons were willing to risk jail for the privilege.
In fact, this kind of smuggling was a vital part of Britain's economy for some 200 years.
It was a trade triggered by increasingly high tariffs or duties, taxes a merchant would have to pay to legally import tea.
The duties on importing tea reached a staggering 119% in the 1750s - which meant that if you could avoid paying the tax, the cost of your brew dropped by more than half.
Not surprisingly many customers turned to the smugglers, who were willing to risk imprisonment or have their ships destroyed and goods seized if they were caught.
Free trade and smuggling are closely linked.
When import taxes or tariffs are low, there's not much profit to be made from smuggling.
Conversely, when a government makes it expensive to legally import items it encourages smugglers who can undercut the official price.
Tea taxes
Tea was one of the most important items illegally brought into Britain in the 18th Century - everybody wanted to drink it, but most could not afford it at the official price.
In an age before income tax, tea duties accounted for 10% of government revenues, which was enough to pay for the Royal Navy, but as tariffs on it reached 119% it gave smugglers their chance.
"If you had high tariffs and goods people wanted, it gave smugglers a business opportunity," says Exeter University historian Helen Doe.
More than 3,000 tonnes of tea was smuggled into Britain a year by the late 1700s, with just 2,000 tonnes imported legally.
In some areas whole communities were dependent on smuggling, from landowners who might finance the operation down to the fishermen who might be crewing the boats.
Smuggling operations
There were three main types of smuggling, says Robert Blyth, senior curator at the National Maritime Museum in London.
"There's small-scale smuggling, where you might row your boat out to meet a ship and take off some of its cargo to sell illegally, the ship's captain declaring the missing cargo as 'spoiled at sea' when it gets to port to officially unload the rest," he says.
"Then there are commercially organised groups bringing contraband into harbours across the UK in a sophisticated operation.
"Finally, you have simple theft and pilfering in major ports like London from ships that have already moored, but have not yet been checked by the revenue."
Swedish traders
It wasn't just the British who were developing a taste for tea. The popularity of the drink in Sweden meant the country also played an important role in 18th Century smuggling into Britain.
Swedish East India Company merchants were able to buy the best quality Chinese tea because unlike other European countries they were prepared to pay in silver - rather than seeking to barter or trade.
Quite a few were actually Scottish, political refugees who had fled to Sweden after the failure of the 1745 Jacobite uprising, and who thus saw little wrong in avoiding paying tax to Britain's Hanoverian government.
So popular was this trade that newspapers in Scotland and northern England openly carried adverts for this smuggled tea, called "Gottenburgh Teas".
For many tea traders in Britain, buying smuggled tea made sense, says Derek Janes, a history researcher at Exeter University.
"Britain's own East India Company had a monopoly on tea imports, so if an Edinburgh merchant wanted to buy it you had to go to London, you had to pay to bring it back to Scotland - and you had to pay upfront.
"But if you bought it from the smugglers it would be half the price - with no tax to pay - they would deliver to your door and you would get up to four months credit. A much better service!"
One of those involved in this trade was John Nisbet, who became rich enough to commission architect John Adams to design his harbourside mansion in Eyemouth in the Scottish borders, complete with hidden partitions for the smuggled tea.
Often when the customs officials got a tip-off about his ship it was too late - the cargo had already been smuggled ashore. And if a smuggler did have his goods seized, he could sometimes negotiate a price to buy it back from the government.
"John Nisbet had a ship and cargo seized, but you can see the lawyer for the board of customs in Edinburgh say that the witnesses had disappeared, so the customs did a deal. He paid £250 to get it all back, which still left him in profit," says Mr Janes.
Increased policing
By 1784, the government realised high tariffs were creating more problems than they were worth and cut tea duties to just 12.5%, making tea affordable for most people. The change meant smugglers switched to bringing in spirits and wine instead.
The Napoleonic wars saw an upsurge in smuggling, but after 1815 with the Royal Navy in undisputed command of the sea, its days were numbered.
Ultimately, many smugglers failed. In the long run, the business did not generate enough cash to compensate for the risks of losing stock or ships to the customs. John Nisbet may have been able to afford a fine house but even he went bust eventually, the result of one too many cargo seizures.
In the end, it was economics that finally put an end to the smuggling era. Britain's adoption of a free trade policy in the 1840s reduced import duties significantly, making smuggling no longer viable.
And thanks to that shift in policy, you can now sit back, relax and enjoy a nice cup of tea without any fears of going to prison.
Follow Tim Bowler on Twitter @timbowlerbbc
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Here is a full list of winners and nominees for the 2017 Bafta TV Awards, which have taken place in London.
| Leading actress
Leading actor
Supporting actress
Supporting actor
Entertainment performance
Male performance in a comedy programme
Female performance in a comedy programme
Drama series
Single drama
Mini-series
Soap and continuing drama
International
Entertainment programme
Comedy and comedy entertainment programme
Scripted comedy
Features
Must See Moment
Current affairs
Single documentary
Factual series
Reality and constructed factual
Specialist factual
News coverage
Sport
Live event
Fellowship
Special Award
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Google's been busy. Over recent weeks it's added photo auto-enhancement to its Google+ social network, launched air balloons to provide internet access from near-space, unveiled a subscription music service, teased a new smartphone and revamped its Maps product. | By Leo KelionTechnology reporter
But when the company reports its latest earnings, investors will be focused on one thing - how its search adverts business is performing.
For all Google's innovation, search remains its cash cow.
The company accounted for 90% of UK-based desktop searches and 92% of mobile searches in June, according to net analysis provider Statcounter - the kind of figures any company would envy.
Its global figures were even higher - although its share of its home market, the US, is below average (78% share of desktop search), and the company remains an also-ran in China, Russia and South Korea.
"At one time Google was clearly a better search engine - now we can debate that point," said Greg Sterling, a tech analyst who writes for the Search Engine Land news website.
"However Google's brand strength, together with the company's aggressive push into mobile have cemented its leadership in most markets for the foreseeable future.
"Nothing is certain but it's difficult to imagine any competitor - outside of parts of Asia and Russia - making significant gains in general web search."
Even so, others are still trying, offering different features or even trying to rethink the principles of the underlying technology.
These are some of the alternative search tools.
Bing
Microsoft's Bing service is the leading search rival to Google when looking at the world as a whole - although it has less than a 20th of the traffic, according to StatCounter.
The most obvious difference between the two is Bing's use of colourful photographs as background images on its homepage with hotspots revealing related links.
Microsoft has also been experimenting with social features.
US-based Bing users see a sidebar in their results that suggests Facebook friends who might be able to provide more information about a particular search, and they can also see "boards" - images and links hand-picked by a group of bloggers and other experts.
Russia's most popular search engine also offers English, Turkish, and Ukranian-language versions among its options.
The firm is currently rolling out a revamped look to its results, introducing a new feature called "islands" - blocks of information that can be interacted with on the page, avoiding the need to click through to third-party sites.
For example a search for "Aeroflot check-in Moscow" brings up a block allowing the user to send their details to the airline, while "optometrist city clinic 57" allows the person to book an appointment with an eye doctor from within the results page.
DuckDuckGo highlights privacy as its key feature, promising not to collect or share personal information about its users - a topical concern after revelations that Google, Microsoft and others had handed over data to the US's National Security Agency.
Its traffic spiked after details of the Prism surveillance programme were leaked - although some later questioned whether it could truly prevent "NSA snooping" if the agency was determined to gather information.
DuckDuckGo also claims to be less cluttered than rivals - in part because it limits itself to one advert on each results page - and does not personalise results, saying this prevents users from becoming enclosed in "filter bubbles".
Most search engines base their ranking of results on their analysis of the words and links on a page.
Blippex instead orders sites according to their DwellRank - the amount of time people spend on a page once they have clicked onto it. The more seconds they linger, the more important the site is judged to be.
The service gets this information by asking volunteers to install an extension that sends it information about their activity anonymously.
Blippex launched earlier this month and early visitors might find some of its results unusual, but the developers promise that the more people use it, the better it should become.
Wolfram Alpha describes itself as a "computational knowledge engine" and strictly speaking doesn't see itself as a "search" service, even if many people use it to hunt for third-party information.
Rather than deliver links to other sites, it gathers facts and figures from primary sources and then allows the information to be structured and compared with other data sets, presenting the results in a range of tables, graphs and other illustrations.
Wolfram also charges for a "pro" option, which also allows users to enter images and their own statistics for analysis, and promises a richer set of results.
Blekko's unique selling point is its use of "slashtags" - a tool to filter the results the user wants to receive.
If, for instance, a visitor wants to know where to buy a cake they might type "chocolate cake / shop / restaurant" but if they want to see a list of articles about the topic with the most recent ones at the top they would type "chocolate cake / blog / date".
Results are then grouped into different categories - such as shopping, recipes and cake decoration - to help users focus on the kind of results they want.
South Korea's leading search engine dates back to 1999, when it was created by a group of former Samsung employees.
Queries deliver unusually long lists of links grouped according to where they were sourced from - blogs, social networks, advertisers, apps, books and news services.
Links often direct users to material sourced from Naver's own services including its "cafes" - areas where people sharing similar interests post content about a particular theme.
Earlier this month South Korea's Fair Trade Commission announced it was investigating the firm for anti-competitive practices.
Pipl specialises at unearthing details about a specific person or material they have posted to the net. It allows queries to be based on a name, email address, username or telephone number.
The developers say their product turns up results their rivals miss because Pipl "crawls the deep web" - including data on social network profiles, court records, member directories and other databases.
Results include photos and sometimes the names of other people the subject knows.
It might sound like a stalker's dream, but visitors can also use the service as a way of tracking down profiles and posts they had created and then forgotten about.
Baidu is by far China's most popular search engine, squishing Google's market share into single figures.
The firm says its strength is that it does not only provide links but, in many cases, the actual information the user wants. This can include songs and videos embedded into the results and even interactive web apps.
For now the service requires its users to be proficient in Chinese. However it recently launched an English-language website for overseas developers wanting to use its services to sell apps to the mainland.
Yacy bases its search engine on the principle of a peer-to-peer network.
Instead of using its own servers to index the web, it relies on its users' computers to do the work via software it provides. The information gathered is then shared to a common database, fragments of which are distributed across the network.
Because the answer to any query is obtained from other volunteers' computers rather than a central portal, Yacy says it is impossible for anyone to censor its results.
However, the ranking algorithms it uses are not as advanced as many of its more traditional rivals, which may limit its appeal beyond an enthusiast audience.
StartPage describes its service as being "enhanced by Google" - a cheeky reference to the fact it depends on the larger firm for all its results.
Its selling point is that it strips all identifying information about users before submitting their queries, preventing Google from logging their internet addresses or installing cookies on their device.
The company behind the product, Surfboard Holding, is based in the Netherlands. It says that places it beyond the reach of Prism and other US data collection programmes.
While all this may appeal to privacy-conscious web users, the trade-off is that results can't be personalised to take account of their history or location - although StartPage suggests this makes them more "pure".
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More than 1.6 million prescriptions for ADHD medication were dispensed in the UK last year - double the figure of a decade ago. With adults now the fastest growing patient group, what is it like for those living with the condition? | By Jim ReedReporter, Victoria Derbyshire programme
"I'd always put it down to just not having any willpower, and not being able to cope in stressful situations," Sam Sykes tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.
"I thought I was a bit of a lesser human, frankly."
Sam was diagnosed with ADHD last year at the age of 44. Her seven-year-old son also has the condition, which often has a genetic link.
Sam says she has lived life with "almost constant anxiety", and finds it hard to stay in a job for any length of time.
"I get to the point where I can't cope anymore," she says.
"Either I'm too bored, or too frustrated, or I genuinely believe that I'm doing such a terrible job that I need to put my employer out of their misery."
When diagnosed, her doctor prescribed pills - slow-acting stimulants - which she now takes once a day.
"I was a bit scared because it occurred to me quite quickly this could be something I was going to have to be on for the rest of my life," she says.
"But from the perspective of everyday survival it's turned my life around."
Most common behavioural disorder
Even among doctors, ADHD is still often thought of as a childhood disorder.
It was only officially recognised as an adult condition in the UK in 2008.
There are no official figures for the numbers affected, but academic studies suggest up to 204,000 British adults could benefit from treatment - making it the most common behavioural disorder in the country.
The NHS lists the symptoms as impulsiveness, hyperactivity and inattentiveness. It can often lead to connected mental health problems, like severe anxiety or depression.
It is possible to develop ADHD as an adult, after a brain injury for example, but the majority of those diagnosed later in life will have been living with it since birth.
"There is still a great deal of ignorance," says Tony Lloyd, chief executive of the charity ADHD Foundation.
"Many adults who are coming to me now are saying, 'I just thought ADHD was about naughty children'."
He adds: "We're really just beginning to understand that undiagnosed, untreated ADHD can have a very significant impact on somebody's health, wellbeing, employability and their life chances."
The exact causes of the disorder are still not fully understood but there is a growing consensus that biology is to blame.
A complex mix of mainly genetic but also environmental factors appears to lead to a shortage of the chemical messengers dopamine and noradrenaline in the brain.
Find out more
Watch Jim Reed's full film on the rise in ADHD pills on the Victoria Derbyshire programme's website.
Medication has been around for decades in different forms. Most of the drugs are stimulants designed to artificially boost the levels of those chemicals.
"It takes an hour to metabolise and - click - it just kicks in," says Sam. "There is no anxiety and you just get on with your day, that's it."
But there can be side-effects.
Sam says taking the pills can make it more difficult to eat and sleep during the day.
"To be honest those side effects are small in comparison the difference the medication has made to my life," she says.
The most commonly-prescribed drug, methylphenidate, is also said to be associated with an increased risk of heart defects in infants whose mothers take the medication during pregnancy, according to a 2017 study in the journal JAMA.
'Mind-altering substance'
Figures compiled by the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme show NHS prescriptions for ADHD medications have more than doubled over the last decade, rising from 761,763 items in 2007 to 1,654,694 in 2017 across England, Wales and Scotland.
The data suggests that adults are now the fastest-growing patient group.
In Scotland, the only nation that records age groups, one in every four on medication is now at least 20 years old.
The huge rise in medication has proved controversial, especially in the US where more than six million children are now diagnosed.
"I am really worried about it," says Dr Joanna Moncrieff, a senior clinical lecturer at University College London.
"It's important for people to realise they're taking a mind-altering substance, basically a low dose of amphetamine or a drug that's similar to amphetamine."
Many other psychiatrists reject that argument, saying that stimulant pills alone often allow people with ADHD to control the disorder.
"The actual effect of giving somebody with ADHD medication is that they just feel normal," says Dr Helen Read, a NHS psychiatrist who specialises in adults with the condition.
"That might sound like a small thing but for somebody who's struggled all their life to do the things that everybody else finds easy, that is absolutely incredible for them."
Zoe Twin, 21, from Orpington in Kent, was first diagnosed in the middle of her GCSE exams six years ago.
"It's mentally debilitating," she says. "You get overwhelmed and you just go into this paralysed state because you don't know what the most important thing is."
She says she was unable to concentrate on her work, and was suffering from depression.
Aged 16, she fell off the radar of the local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) provider and, after a bad experience, stopped taking her medication.
But the symptoms did not go away. After a struggle she was eventually seen by doctors as an adult and put on a different slow-acting stimulant.
"It's a bit like blinkers for my brain, it just allows me to focus and sort out my priorities." she says.
"I'd like to say I wouldn't need it for all my life because we don't know the actual effects of that, but at the moment it's what I need."
The Victoria Derbyshire programme is broadcast weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.
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Bert Trautmann was born in Germany but he went on to have one of the least likely careers in British football. The former prisoner of war from Bremen became one of the most acclaimed British goalkeepers of his generation, playing eventually for Manchester City. Now the film The Keeper tells his story. | By Vincent DowdArts reporter, BBC News
David Kross is 28. As a teenager in Germany, his first big film was Knallhart (aka Tough Enough). Then in 2008 his role in The Reader, opposite Kate Winslet, brought international fame.
But as a child, what he really wanted to be was a professional football player. "I always loved the game," he says. "From five years old until I was 15, I was totally sure I'd be a footballer. It was the same with most of my friends but for me, it didn't work out. So I became an actor."
In The Keeper, he's been called upon to revive his skills on the pitch. It's the true story of Bernd Trautmann, born in 1923, who was in the German forces in World War Two. In 1944 Trautmann was captured by British troops and ultimately sent to a prisoner of war camp near Wigan.
Somewhere along the way, the name Bernd became Bert.
His talent as a goalkeeper registered and he ended up playing for local side St Helens Town in the old Lancashire Combination League. In 1949 he moved to Manchester City as a professional and stayed until 1964, turning out for the club more than 500 times. He died in 2013.
The film is a German-British co-production and in Germany it's simply called Trautmann. But director Marcus Rosenmüller admits that few Germans under 65 would know who the central character is.
"But that's not a big problem because the story really has to work as a love story and a family drama. It's not just a sports bio-pic, although of course the football scenes have to be convincing."
A lot of the hard work of giving the story emotional depth rests with Freya Mavor, who made her name playing Mini McGuinness in the final seasons of Skins on E4. She plays Trautmann's first wife Margaret.
Mavor can't claim to compete with her co-star's passion for football but says: "I've lived quite a lot in France, so when France won the World Cup last summer, I did go a bit mad."
From the ages of nine to 13 Mavor lived in La Rochelle on France's Atlantic coast; at 19 she moved to Paris. Her fluency in the language means she's been in several French films. "I've always loved French cinema and I was obsessed with not sounding like a tourist. So it's brilliant to be accepted as an honorary French person in film."
But was it hard to produce a convincing accent for post-war industrial Lancashire?
"The big test was to sound authentic for people in St Helens and Manchester now," Mavor says. "But I also wanted to understand the society which Margaret came from historically. There's a fascinating book by Norman Longmate called How We Lived Then. It was a huge help in understanding what the war was like for most people."
At this point Kross confesses that, though much of the film is set there, he never actually went to St Helens.
"A lot of The Keeper was filmed in Northern Ireland and our football ground was in Belfast. But that's how films work. Later, when you see me at Wembley with Man City, that's mainly CGI: we were actually filming at Augsburg in Bavaria."
It was in the 1956 FA Cup final at Wembley, when Manchester City were playing Birmingham, that Trautmann damaged vertebrae in his neck. Despite being in a fog of pain, Trautmann played on to the end of the match, securing his side's victory. It was only later he realised how severe his injuries were.
The film starts with a short but powerful section in which we see Trautmann fighting in World War Two. Kross says those scenes were essential. "We have to understand the times he grew up in and the criminal regime which dominated Germany. Bert was part of the Hitler Youth and he went through a sort of brainwashing.
"He absolutely wanted to be a soldier. But there are interviews Bert did near the end of his life in which he talks about seeing civilians shot in Ukraine and how that changed him."
Kross says The Keeper is basically about a man seeking a new home. "I think that's the emotional centre and that's what I needed to get right as an actor."
In the last part of his life, Trautmann lived in Spain and it was there that director Rosenmüller went to talk to him, several years before filming began.
"We spent a week talking to him and as I sat there, I wondered why no one had filmed his story already. There is such drama in how Margaret accepts him and then how his teammates accept him and then England accepts this man they thought was a Nazi."
Rosenmüller always knew there would be a German release for the film but he resisted the temptation to reshoot Kross's scenes in German.
"Visually the German and English versions are 98% the same and David was in the odd position of dubbing himself into his own language. Almost all the German is spoken early on and in fact that helps the drama - the audience sees that Bert is lost in a world he doesn't understand."
Kross comes from Schleswig-Holstein, near the Danish border, but he now lives in Berlin. For a year he was at drama school in London but he's worked in German- and English-language films. So where does he now see the centre of his acting career?
"I would love to do more British-German co-productions. But that doesn't really happen much: it has to be a story which will interest both audiences and the film industry doesn't very often come up with these stories."
The rate of change in that industry is clear when Kross and Mavor talk about what they're doing now. His next project is Betongold (Concrete Gold) - one of the first Netflix productions in Germany.
Mavor, meanwhile, has been filming a four-part fantasy in French called Il était une seconde fois (Once Upon Another Time). It, too, is to be seen on Netflix.
The Keeper opens in UK cinemas on 5 April.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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Plans for a new train station in Reading have been approved. | Green Park station will be built on the Reading to Basingstoke line near the Madejski Stadium, as part of a multi-million pound scheme to improve transport networks across Berkshire.
Plans for the station include a bus interchange, a park and ride and a multi-storey car park.
The planning application was approved by Reading Borough Council at a committee meeting on Wednesday evening.
West Berkshire Council raised no objections to the plans.
But Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) said it was awaiting assurances that the habitats of protected species, such as bats and grass snakes, would be preserved.
Construction work is set to begin in October 2016.
It is part of a £21.4m batch of schemes agreed by the Berkshire Local Transport Body and funded by the government.
Other schemes include road improvements in Newbury, Slough and Bracknell.
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How well do you remember the stories and people in the news this year?
| Test your memory of 2019 in the next instalment of our four-part Christmas quiz - 52 questions for 52 weeks of the year. This section covers October to December.
If you cannot see the quiz, click here.
Picture credits: Getty Images, Reuters, PA Media, AFP, Centre for Palaeogenetics
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A 15-year-old boy is to face trial for murder after the fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old man in Birmingham. | Troy Paul was attacked at about 13:00 BST on Saturday in the Kingstanding area of the city.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday and spoke only to confirm his identity.
Two men, aged 20 and 24, arrested in connection with the investigation, have been released on bail.
See more stories from Birmingham and the Black Country here
The boy has been remanded in custody until a plea hearing on 25 September.
The trial is expected to begin on 2 January 2018 and to last three weeks.
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The latest salvo by former FBI Director James Comey in his feud with President Donald Trump included the charge that the president was morally unfit and may have obstructed justice. | In a primetime television interview, which precedes his book publication on Tuesday, he also said the Russians may have compromising information on Mr Trump.
The book likens Mr Trump to a mob boss and details his fixation on claims he consorted with prostitutes in Moscow.
On Twitter, Mr Trump branded him "Slippery James Comey", and says he lied to Congress.
Here is a selection of what Mr Comey said in the interview, with analysis from the BBC's Anthony Zurcher in Washington.
1. 'Morally unfit'
ABC News has released a full 42,000-word transcript of the interview.
Host presenter George Stephanopoulos on ABC's 20/20 programme interviewed Mr Comey on Sunday night.
When asked if he considered Mr Trump fit to lead, the former FBI director said he did not believe claims about Mr Trump's mental health, but did see him as "morally unfit" to be president.
"A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they're pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person's not fit to be president of the United States," he told Mr Stephanopoulos.
Mr Comey was referring to President Trump's argument that "both sides" were at fault for white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.
Anthony's take: Mr Comey's book, separated from its newsworthy, tell-all portions, is really an extended rumination on the nature of moral leadership. While it may come across as preachy to some, and others will highlight his own (admitted) shortcomings in this regard, Mr Comey has strong views on the standards those who seek high office should meet. In the most dramatic, final portion of his interview, he is definitive in saying Mr Trump has failed.
2. Obstruction of justice
Another portion of the interview handled the sacking of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in February 2017 for lying about contacts with the Russian ambassador in Washington.
The former FBI head said Mr Trump had tried to pressure him into dropping any investigation into Mr Flynn.
"I took it as a direction," he told Mr Stephanopoulos. "He's - his words were, though, 'I hope you can let it go'."
Mr Comey says he let the comment pass, but concedes he should perhaps have suggested to the president that it would amount to obstruction of justice.
"It's certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice. It would depend and - and I'm just a witness in this case, not the investigator or prosecutor, it would depend upon other things that reflected on his intent."
Mr Trump strongly denies Mr Comey's account.
Anthony's take:When told that the president disputes his version of events, Mr Comey almost shrugs. "Yeah, well, what am I going to do?" he asks. Both Mr Comey and Mr Trump, in very different language and tactics, are accusing the other of lying. The former director says he has contemporary memos that back up his claims. Mr Trump's defenders want to see those documents, and accuse him of perjury and leaking classified information. For those investigating obstruction of justice - and, ultimately, the America people - it comes down to credibility. Who has it - and who doesn't?
3. Impeachment?
But despite all this, Mr Comey does not think the president should be impeached.
"I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook," he told Mr Stephanopoulos.
Instead, he believes the American people are "duty-bound" to remove Mr Trump "directly" at the ballot box.
In the memoir itself, Mr Comey reportedly compares Mr Trump to a crime lord.
He writes that interactions with the president gave him "flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob".
The former FBI chief was a prosecutor earlier in his career, and helped break up the Gambino crime family.
"The silent circle of assent," he continues. "The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview.
"The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organisation above morality and above the truth."
Anthony's take:After laying out a stunning moral indictment of Mr Trump, Mr Comey essentially says this is a choice the American people made - and one they have to correct themselves. Barring some sort of damning evidence, he says ending the Trump presidency isn't a job for prosecutors or politicians. The toll of such a move on an already deeply divided American society would be too high. It's an interesting perspective for a former top-ranking law enforcement official to have - particularly one who earlier in the interview asserted that his 2016 investigations were done with no regard to the impact they would have on the "political fortunes" of those involved.
4. Clinton emails probe
In the TV interview, Mr Comey said his belief that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 presidential elections was a factor in how he handled the investigation into the Democrat candidate's use of classified emails on a private server while she was the secretary of state.
"I was operating in a world where Hillary Clinton was going to beat Donald Trump," Mr Comey said.
"And so I'm sure that it - that it was a factor.
"I don't remember spelling it out, but it had to have been. That - that she's going to be elected president, and if I hide this from the American people, she'll be illegitimate the moment she's elected, the moment this comes out."
In July 2016, Mr Comey said Hillary Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of the emails, but the FBI would not press charges.
However, in October, days before the vote, he sent a letter to Congress telling them the FBI was reopening an investigation after finding more emails. The letter went public - and Mrs Clinton has said she would have won the election without it.
On 6 November, the FBI said it had completed its review into the new trove of emails and there would, again, be no charges.
Anthony's take: In an unaired portion of the Comey interview, the former director says that the emails discovered in October were from early in Mrs Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, before she started using her private server. If there were evidence of criminal misconduct, it would probably come from this time period. In the end, there was nothing revelatory - but Mr Comey cites this to explain why he made such a dramatic move. He decided to let a political bombshell go off just a week before the election, rather than try to defuse it in private and risk an even bigger explosion in the days after a presidential contest he believed Mrs Clinton would win. History will judge his choice.
5. 'Moscow prostitutes'
The former FBI boss writes that on at least four occasions Mr Trump raised the matter of unverified claims that he watched prostitutes urinate in a hotel suite during a 2013 Moscow trip.
The allegations surfaced in a raw intelligence dossier compiled by a former British spy who had been hired by Mr Trump's political enemies to dig up dirt on him.
Mr Comey says Mr Trump angrily denied the claims and asked him to have the FBI disprove them because they were "terrible" for his wife, Melania Trump.
He writes that he first broached the matter at a Trump Tower meeting in January 2017 shortly before the president's inauguration.
Mr Comey said in the interview: "He interrupted very defensively and started talking about it, you know, 'Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?'
"And I assumed he was asking that rhetorically, I didn't answer that, and I just moved on and explained, 'Sir, I'm not saying that we credit this, I'm not saying we believe it. We just thought it very important that you know.'"
Mr Comey added: "I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It's possible, but I don't know."
Anthony's take: There is a moment as Mr Comey is recalling his Trump Tower conversation with the president-elect about Russian prostitutes that he expresses amazement over what is taking place, describing it like an out-of-body experience. "I was floating above myself, looking down." It's a sentiment with which many Americans - particularly those who have Mr Comey's establishment sensibilities - can probably identify. Even a year on, they can't quite believe the Trump presidency is really happening - or that the man is governing, tweets and all, the way he campaigned. That aside, the December 2016 meeting was the first between the two men. Afterwards, it should have been clear that they were almost certainly heading on a collision course.
6. Trump's hair and hands
Mr Comey, who is 6ft 8in (2.03m), says that when he first met the 6ft 3in president-elect, he appeared shorter than he did on TV.
"His face appeared slightly orange," writes Mr Comey, "with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles, and impressively coifed, bright blond hair, which upon close inspection looked to be all his.
"As he extended his hand, I made a mental note to check its size. It was smaller than mine, but did not seem unusually so."
Elaborating on this in the TV interview, he said: "His tie was too long as it always is... he looked slightly orange up close."
Anthony's take:This interview should put to bed any question about whether Mr Comey has a natural talent for public relations. He sprinkles his comments throughout with the kind of little details and colour that keep an audience engaged. There's the tidbits about the president's personal appearance, his description of drinking wine out of a paper cup on flight home after being fired and his joke in the early days of the Clinton investigation that "nobody gets out alive". Mr Comey would probably make a good politician - if he hadn't spent the past two years, at different points, making almost everybody hate him.
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A new sentencing council for Scotland has come into force. | The council is an independent body responsible for preparing guidelines to help ensure a consistent approach to sentencing throughout Scotland.
It will also work to raise public awareness and understanding of sentencing practice.
It is made up of 12 members who reflect a balance of expertise and interests across the criminal justice system, including victims' issues.
The 12 members are five judicial office holders, three legal members, a police officer, a victims' representative and another non-judicial member.
Council members:
The council will be chaired by the Lord Justice Clerk Lord Carloway, who said: "The council is something entirely new for Scotland.
"Sentencing is much more complex than it sometimes appears - there can be many different factors involved.
"The council will work to raise awareness and understanding of sentencing practice - not only for our justice partners but for the wider public - helping to build confidence in our justice system.
"I expect the council to take Scotland into a new era, in which we pursue a more principled approach to sentencing with improved consistency. This will be at the heart of our programme."
Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said: "The creation of the Scottish Sentencing Council is extremely important for the criminal justice system in Scotland and I welcome today's official launch.
"We know that sentencing can be an extremely complicated and emotive issue which is why we want to provide greater clarity and openness around why and how sentences are decided."
He added: "While the independence of Scotland's judiciary of course remains a fundamental part of the Scottish legal system, as does judicial discretion in individual sentencing decisions, the council will help to ensure transparency and consistency in all sentencing decisions made in Scotland, as well as helping the public better understand the sentencing process."
Council member Sue Moody, who has knowledge of victims' issues, added: "The council is good news for the victims of crime in Scotland.
"It will help to demystify sentencing for the public, and will ensure that the interests and needs of victims are taken into account when sentencing guidelines are prepared. This is an important opportunity for victims to contribute their views."
The council will prepare guidelines, along with their likely effects, for approval by the High Court. In sentencing offenders, the Scottish courts must take these guidelines, if applicable, into account - or give reasons for not doing so.
The council will also:
The High Court, new Sheriff Appeal Court and Scottish ministers can request the council to prepare or review sentencing guidelines on any matter.
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Hackers are secretive, but they are also social. Many spend their spare time in chat rooms and forums discussing their latest targets, techniques and conquests. Eavesdropping on those conversations offers a fascinating insight into their motives. | By Jane WakefieldTechnology reporter
Say hacker to someone and they are likely to trot out the usual aged clichés - geek, loner, bedroom-bound teenager.
Philosopher is unlikely to feature high on the list. But it seems the modern-day hacker spends a lot of time contemplating the meaning of life.
"Each has a philosophy and they want to discuss it," says Noa Bar Yosef.
She ought to know. Her job with security firm Imperva involves hanging around in hacker forums trying to work out what motivates them.
It is a murky, idiosyncratic world where Ms Yosef admits she spends far too much time.
In one group she visits, members discuss the best reading matter for would-be thinkers.
"Start with Kierkegaard, then Nietzsche and after you've read Nietzsche, Sartre is the most logical choice".
Another poses a question about the practicalities of hacker life: "what kit would you take with you if you were on the run?"
A detailed reply soon appears:
Often, online conversations get personal.
"If they spend a lot of time discussing philosophy, that is nothing compared to the amount of time they devote to their love life, from tips on how to get a girlfriend to details about the next steps, through to chatting about being dumped," says Ms Bar Yosef.
They are also fond of religion as a topic. One hacker forum conducted a poll to find out the faith of its members.
Christians topped the poll with 29% of forum members claiming it was their religion of choice, 28% said they had no religion, 24% followed Islam, 4% were Hindus and 1.8% professed to be Buddhists.
Literature comes up regularly too.
Hackers spend time swapping tips about their favourite books, with choices ranging from Stephen King and a guidebook entitled 'Galactic Rebellion for Dummies' to the handbook of disenchanted youth, Catcher in the Rye. There is also mention of John Milton's 17th century epic poem Paradise Lost.
And for those seeking movie recommendations, members are always keen to offer their top list of films about - you've guessed it - hacking.
Darker side
Beyond the frivolous, there is serious business being discussed in these forums.
For many, they are akin to university seminars - a place to brainstorm new ideas and update older techniques.
As hacking moves from an interest to a hobby to a vocation, sharing skills becomes increasingly important.
"They are a collaborative community," says Ms Bar Yosef.
"Think of the drug industry. A drug dealer couldn't possibly conduct all these activities alone and likewise an individual hacker finds cyber-accomplices a necessity."
A typical 'cyber mafia', she explains, includes a 'researcher' who hunts for vulnerabilities in systems, a 'farmer' who maintains the botnets (networks of computers taken over by malicious code and controlled externally), a 'dealer' who rents botnets and extracts valuable data from them and a 'crime lord' who finds ways of making money from the stolen information.
Often Ms Bar Yosef will see an upcoming security threat emerging as ideas are knocked around.
She cites the example of Osama bin Laden's killing. Immediately afterwards there was an upsurge in discussions about how to take advantage by creating fake videos of his death loaded with malware.
Dark places
If the forums are any kind of measure, there is no shortage of recruits to the hacker cause. One popular group frequented by Ms Bar Yosef has 200,000 members.
The chat rooms that she can access tend to be the hacker-lite hangouts. Many of those members will be enthusiastic geeks or sometimes hactivists, keen to score points on corporations with minor website vandalism.
Those more heavily involved in the criminal underground tend to converse in locations that are not publicly accessible.
Making the leap from enthusiastic amateur to becoming part of a gang is alarmingly easy, says Ms Yosef.
Going to the dark side is a four step process, she explains.
"Start lurking in different underground hacking forums. Become an active participant in topics. Bring some 'proof' of what you've said - for example 'I'm posting for free five credentials to Paypal. Want more? Call me up!'. Earn a reputation and you're in."
Such is the level of insight that can be garnered from hacker forums that they regularly come under the watchful eye of law enforcement.
Spanish police this week arrested three suspected members of the Anonymous hacker group. Authorities revealed that they had trawled through more than 2,000,000 lines of chat logs and web pages leading up to the arrests.
With the International Monetary Fund, Sony, Google, Lockheed Martin, RSA Security and Citibank just some of the diverse and high profile victims of security breaches in the last month, scrutiny of these electronic hangouts will only increase.
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A collection of watches and clocks belonging to the Isle of Man's Dr George Daniels has raised over £8m at Sotheby's auction in London. | The 134-lot included several of the master watchmaker's creations, alongside his own private collection.
The Space Travellers' watch, invented to commemorate the first moon landing, was the highest selling item at £1.32m.
All of the money raised will go towards George Daniels' Educational Trust.
The trust helps students seeking higher education in horology, engineering, medicine, building or construction.
Dr Daniels was the first person to make every component of a watch from scratch and by hand.
He died at the age of 85 in 2011 at his Isle of Man home.
In July, a vintage car belonging to Dr Daniels fetched more than £5m at auction.
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Despite having one of the largest Asian populations in England and Wales, politicians say Blackburn has never elected an Asian woman to its council. Areas with a similar demographic have managed it, so why hasn't this town? | By Rahila Bano & Nafeesa ShanAsian Network & BBC News
"I was told to look like a Muslim. I was a woman with a stigma, I'd left a forced marriage.
"Comments were also made about my sexuality, there were other much worse things said."
Saima Afzal stood as a Labour candidate in different Blackburn wards in 1999, 2000 and 2001 - coming second each time.
The former Assistant Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire claims some Asian men in the community were unsupportive.
And 15 years on, it seems little has changed - Blackburn with Darwen Council is yet to have an Asian woman represent one of its wards.
The authority's leader Mohammed Khan believes it is because they have "other priorities".
"Their jobs, their house and caring responsibility," explains the Labour councillor of 25 years.
"We do so much to encourage them to come forward, we give them training and tell them how the system works.
"But this is not paid, it's a voluntary job. It's their choice, we can't force them to come into the council."
Blackburn saw an influx of Pakistani and Indian immigrants move to the area in the 1960s, many of whom went to work in the textile mills at a time the town was known for its booming cotton industry.
Fast forward 50 years and the borough now has the 11th largest proportion of Asian residents out of 174 local authority areas in England and Wales.
At the 2011 census, nearly a third of its 147,500 residents were recorded as Asian, of which half were women.
Yet the demographics are not fully reflected by the area's political make-up. Of the 39 men elected to represent Blackburn, 19 are Asian men; there are no Asian women councillors.
"When I stood, it was to raise issues that women face," says 46-year-old Ms Afzal, who is standing again in May's local elections.
"We should be able to work and have a full education. I felt the [issues] weren't prevalent at the time and we needed to raise them."
But the town's MP Kate Hollern believes it is "more difficult" for Asian women from traditional families to get involved in politics.
"Asian women play a prominent role in many local organisations - all of which feed into the decision-making process of the area.
"It may be however that the structures of elected politics, with frequent evening and weekend meetings, make it difficult for women who remain generally the main carers in families, to get more involved."
But is it really as simple as a difference in culture which traditionally casts men as the dominant breadwinner and decision-maker, while the women focus on family and home?
Some political parties would disagree. They say they have been trying for years to change the landscape in Blackburn by fielding Asian female candidates in local elections.
But their attitude for change has so far not been matched at the polls.
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Malcolm Doherty, who was on the council from 1980 to 2012, claims that during his tenure he detected an "anti-woman feeling" and "the men [in Asian wards] wouldn't vote for them".
The former Labour councillor said: "It was quite strong at that time, they didn't want [Asian] women councillors. I could never understand it.
"It was very difficult, we tried to get them [elected] in Asian wards and then to wards which weren't Asian, but weren't successful.
"Saima stood and she was a very good candidate. It was a sad loss she wasn't elected."
Blackburn, neighbouring Darwen and parts of Turton joined in 1998 to form a unitary authority, which is currently Labour-run with 48 male and 16 female councillors.
While Darwen and Turton has a Middle Eastern female councillor of Jordanian descent, it has no representation from the Asian community, male or female.
It is in stark contrast to similar towns not far from Blackburn, such as Oldham, Rochdale and Bury, where at least one Asian woman has been elected to the council.
The nearby Chorley authority has two - Hasina Khan and her daughter, Zara, 23.
The former became interested in politics in 2003 after she had "absolutely had enough" of the monotony of "cooking, cleaning and school runs".
"Blackburn has this biradari [tribal/clan network] system more like the Pakistani politics back home, which is of course male-dominated and where the heads of families are men who make most decisions.
"This is one of the main reasons why there are no Asian female councillors."
Encouraged by her MP Lindsay Hoyle to go out canvassing, she joined Labour before standing as a candidate - going on in 2006 to become the first Asian female councillor in Lancashire outside the unitary authorities.
She accepts women have a "caring responsibility" in their culture, but said when she stood the support from her family, in "particular the men, [was] excellent".
"The electorate [in Chorley] was 99% non-Asian, there was no tribal system here to try block me."
She describes hitting a brick wall when trying to recruit other Asian women to stand.
"The biggest hindrance is family themselves, fathers, brothers, husbands. They say 'what's the community going to say?' and 'politics isn't for women, they should be looking after the home'."
Political activist Farzana Afzal, who is based in Manchester, says some Asian women are "too occupied in their house work, children and household duties", while others face a language barrier.
"The women who've come from abroad, they don't watch BBC News or mainstream channels because they can't follow it. They watch Pakistani channels about politics over there."
The knock-on effect, according to teenagers in the town, is that there are no female role models in Blackburn.
At the West End Girls group - set up to help youngsters develop leadership skills - Taybah, 15, thinks Asian women are "not being represented".
"I think culture is potentially holding them back," adds Huma, 15. "It's a full time job, Asian women are attached to their families.
"The idea isn't put into your mind when you're young [to be in politics]."
Conservative group leader John Slater believes the "cultural issue... seems to be a trait in Blackburn".
"I'm quite sad about it, the opportunities are there but they're not being taken up," he says.
Parliament is currently at its most diverse with 52 of the 650 MPs elected from ethnic minorities. Of those, 26 were women - representing just 4% of all MPs.
With those figures, "it is therefore no surprise that Asian women at the grassroots level of politics do not think [it] is an arena for them," says Rushanara Ali, Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.
She believes there should be more government help to encourage ethnic minorities to get into local politics.
The mantle is being taken up in cities where there are large Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities such as Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester and Bradford, where there are up to eight Asian women on their councils.
But unsociable hours and commitments to constituents could still prevent Asian women in towns like Blackburn from getting involved, says Dr Victoria Honeyman, British politics lecturer at the University of Leeds.
"This all eats into family time and, again, as the caring responsibilities tend to fall unevenly on women, particularly in traditional family units as is common in Asian communities, it can create additional barriers to women engaging in politics.
"The local elections will be the next opportunity for Asian women to challenge the status quo through the ballot box."
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Officers investigating a double stabbing are trying to trace a third man who may also be injured. | Two men were taken to hospital after being found with stab wounds in Copenhagen Street, Worcester, at about 19:15 GMT on Saturday.
Officers believe the stabbings happened near the fountains in the city centre street.
West Mercia Police urged anyone who could help find the man to contact the force or Crimestoppers.
Det Ch Insp Ian Wall said: "Our priority at the moment is to check on the welfare of another man we believe was injured in this incident."
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Right now analysts will believe anything about the summit where Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are set to meet, so when the New York Post reported that basketball star Dennis Rodman may also turn up, it didn't seem so far-fetched. But basketball diplomacy might just work with North Korea, explains Michael Madden. | Dennis Rodman has the strange distinction of being the first American to have met both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. He has twice been a contestant on Mr Trump's reality television show Celebrity Apprentice and has travelled to North Korea five times. He even claims to have given Mr Kim a copy of The Art of the Deal, the Trump guide to hustle and deal-making in big business.
Rodman's also offered his wisdom on the two men. Last August, he said the exchange of fiery rhetoric and brinkmanship filled with nuclear threats was "more like two big kids deciding who's the toughest".
It's far from confirmed if he'll even be in Singapore on 12 June, but the possibility is a reminder that this is not just about a flamboyant, cross-dressing, basketball player nicknamed The Worm trying to make his mark in one of the most broken geo-political relationships in the world today.
Basketball has a long and important history and meaning for North Korea's elites and when Rodman made his first trip to North Korea in 2013 - when Vice Media arranged for his team the Harlem Globetrotters to have an exhibition match there - he had little idea how significant the sport and its ambassadors are to the rulers of the state.
NBA courts across North Korea
Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un's meeting was not the first contact between basketball and North Korea. In 2000 then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il, with a basketball autographed by Michael Jordan. It's currently kept in North Korea's International Friendship Exhibition.
It was a very smart gift and obviously an ironic one. It's one of the most potent symbols of American soft power, a sport America can actually justifiably claim to have "invented", a deeply American ball game, and it's also something we know that Kim Jong-il absolutely loved.
In countless North Korean state media videos we see at various sites, including military ones, an NBA regulation basketball court in the background. The sport is also widespread at worksites and production units and part of the organised programming of activities on holidays.
Even at Kim Jong-il's funeral many spotted an inordinately tall North Korean, who many believe is Ri Myung-hun, also known as Michael Ri, a North Korean retired basketball player. He's technically a member of the military. And North Korea's minister of people security Cho Bui-il, the head of the North Korean police, was also a basketball coach.
It's safe to say that basketball is a "thing" in North Korea's leadership and it's even less of a surprise really that Kim Jong-il's' love of basketball was passed onto his son. It's been a personal preference of the leader and so it's a central signal of favour in the North Korean elite.
'Basketball diplomacy'
So when Vice Media made the trip in 2013, a fruitful correspondence was almost inevitable.
Dennis Rodman touched down in North Korea with the Harlem Globetrotters, who then played a North Korean selection while Rodman and Mr Kim sat in the gallery watching.
Rodman has since been several times to North Korea in what has been referred to as "basketball diplomacy" and has said his aim was to "connect two countries".
What's notable is how closely North Korean television covered Rodman's visits. he famously forged a "friendship" with the young North Korean leader. One trip had about 30 minutes of coverage on state TV (that's impressive) which brings us to the next thing about basketball and North Korea.
The famous February 2013 trip, at the game the Harlem Globetrotters put on, was one of the only times where you saw large numbers of members of the North Korean elite in their 20s and 30s. It was a rare and sure sign that a new generation of North Korea's leadership was present and alert.
They are involved all over the place but it's mostly unseen. They tend to show up in public at provincial events like the opening of a statue. A couple have floated to the top, such as Vice Premier Jon Kwang-ho and, most famous of all, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong-un.
But their presence at the Globetrotters game was about associating the younger elites with this most modern of Korean preferences, now up there with Tae Kwon Do or even football.
Kim Jong-un is the young leader after all.
So Dennis Rodman's potential trip to Singapore will tap into the personal tastes of Kim Jong-un, the long-standing preferences of the North Korean leadership and it will play well with the millennials in the elite, waiting in the wings, part of the inevitable generational change.
So what could Rodman do?
As a man who made several trips, met Kim Jong-un on various occasions, professed his friendship and respect for the leader, it may be comedy or it may be canny to have him turn up.
He might make an appearance at some kind of cultural event as a special guest. The leaders definitely have Rodman relations in common. And if you remember that the comedian who invented the Pen Pineapple Pen earworm was on show at the state dinner when Mr Trump visited Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Japan, it really does seem within the realms of plausibility.
Rodman is easily a kind of goodwill ambassador.
If the sides come to an agreement about a kind of cultural exchange, Rodman could be a key part of that somehow. A basketball exchange.
More importantly, if he does turn up you shouldn't be surprised because both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un operate by trusting personal relationships.
Protocol plays a lesser role than personalities for both these men and in Rodman where some see a clown, they might just see a friend.
Michael Madden is visiting scholar of the US Korea Institute at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University and Director of NK Leadership Watch, an affiliate of 38 North.
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The EastEnders plot surrounding who killed character Lucy Beale has kept fans in the dark for the past 10 months. With the murderer set to be revealed on Thursday, we use the latest crime figures to take a not-too-serious look at the likely suspects. | By Danny ShawHome affairs correspondent, BBC News
Lucy Beale was mightily unlucky.
She died at a time when, according to the official crime survey of England and Wales, the risk of being a victim of crime was at its lowest for 33 years - when reports of violent offences were on the decline, and in a year the Metropolitan Police recorded London's lowest number of homicides since the 1960s. Poor Lucy.
The figures do suggest Lucy's killer will be caught: 90% of murder and manslaughter cases result in someone being charged with an offence, though a small proportion will be acquitted at trial.
But the key question, of course, is who murdered Lucy?
Was it Max Branning, with whom she had a secret affair? Lucy's dad, Ian? They'd argued about her stash of cocaine. Could it be Ben Mitchell - only recently released from prison after serving a sentence for murdering Heather? Or one of the 11 other suspects?
Family killing?
Whatever the scriptwriters have in mind, the statistics clearly point in one direction - but we'll come to that in a minute.
What is unlikely, though, is that Lucy was murdered by someone she didn't know. You may often see stranger killings in crime dramas, but in real life they're comparatively rare.
The latest data, compiled by the Office for National Statistics, show only 8% of murders of females over the age of 16 in 2013-14 were committed by a stranger, though in a further 9% of cases the suspect hadn't been identified.
Murders committed by women or girls are also highly unusual - about 10% - a figure which will trigger sighs of relief among half the EastEnders suspects, including Abi.
And it's improbable, based on the figures, Lucy was murdered by one of her friends: Jay, for instance. The category of friend or acquaintance killings accounts for only 9% of killings of women.
So, who is in the frame?
The official statistics suggest there's a 20% chance Lucy's killer was related to her - a group of suspects that includes brother Peter, half-uncle Ben (though convicted killers rarely go on to commit another murder after release) and dad Ian.
In fact, murders of children by their parents are statistically the most common family-type killing, so Ian's not in the clear just yet.
However, if art was going to imitate real life, then Lucy's killer is someone she had a sexual relationship with. It's a sad fact in the majority of female murder cases the killer is a husband, partner, boyfriend or ex.
There are only two suspects who can be classed as ex-partners of Lucy - Lee Carter, who she had a fling with, and of course, Max.
If I was from Walford CID, those are the two I'd have in my sights.
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BBC Radio Wales and Radio Cymru both ended 2016 with a small rise in the number of listeners compared with the rest of the year, figures have shown. | Radio Wales attracted 375,000 listeners while Radio Cymru had 114,000 people tuning in during the last quarter.
The weekly reach figures released by audience researcher Rajar were up on previous quarters in the year.
Between April and June, listening numbers were at their lowest level since 1999.
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A 34-year-old man has been arrested and a woman taken to hospital following an incident in Cardiff. | Police were called to Stafford Road in Grangetown at about 14:15 GMT.
A 26-year-old woman has been taken to University Hospital of Wales in the city, although her injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
It is believed those involved are known to each other, and police inquiries are continuing in the area.
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An inquest has been opened into the death of a maintenance engineer who died while working at dairy giant Muller's headquarters. | Lewis McFarlin, 24, died at the scene in Market Drayton, Shropshire, on 16 January.
Muller said last week he had been carrying out maintenance work on a service lift at the Tern Valley Business Park premises.
Shropshire's coroner adjourned the inquest in Shrewsbury until 24 April.
The Health and Safety Executive is investigating the death.
A spokesperson for Muller previously said the firm was assisting the investigation.
Mr McFarlin was from Stoke-on-Trent.
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A lot has happened in 2020, but one thing that might have been overlooked is the re-emergence of the beaver in England. A five-year government trial into the reintroduction of beavers into the wild ended, citing a long list of benefits, while new beaver homes have been set up in enclosures around the country. What's so good about the beaver - and why isn't everyone a fan? | By Duncan LeatherdaleBBC News
Beavers have been dubbed the ultimate environmental engineers, capable of alleviating flooding and sparking new life into barren wildernesses.
They are perhaps most famous for their dams, and it is these that bring the ecological benefits according to the Beaver Trust, a campaign group that wants to see the rodents reintroduced "in the right places" in England.
With their rudder-shaped tails, webbed feet and goggle-like second eyelids, beavers work best in the water and they only really feel safe and secure in depths of at least 1m (3ft).
They gnaw down nearby trees with their incredibly tough orange teeth and collect other debris to dam up streams, creating ponds and pools behind to dwell in.
They also dig canals so they can forage for the foliage they liked to feed on, with the accumulating water creating wetlands for other species, such as frogs, dragonflies and fish to flourish in.
Their dams also slow water flow, relieving flooding problems further down stream while pooling water for droughts, according to Eva Bishop of the Beaver Trust.
"The right beaver in the right place can be amazing," she said.
"Beavers create a whole mosaic of diverse habitats and allow a flourishing bio-diversity and bio-abundance.
"They have a genuine macro-scale impact and they are a key part of our tool kit to rescue our wildlife.
"Beavers bring life."
To many of us, beavers seem like a foreign entity, more naturally suited to the wilds of North America.
But, until 400 or so years ago, they were native Englanders, before being hunted to extinction for their soft warm fur, meat and glandular oil for use in medicines.
In recent years they have been reintroduced in Scotland, Wales and now increasingly in England, with up to 500 thought to be housed around the country, mostly in enclosures.
In 2020, pairs of beavers have been released on the Holnicote Estate in Somerset, at Hatchmere near Delamere Forest in Cheshire, on the Lowther Estate in Cumbria and at Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk, with plans imminent to release a couple at Willington in Derbyshire
In Devon, beavers were given the right to remain and spread naturally on the River Otter by the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) after a five-year study concluded the benefits they bring outweigh the negatives.
Meanwhile, a pair of beavers released on the Spains Hall Estate near Braintree in Essex in 2019 have had kits.
And the beavers in Somerset have just built the first dam on Exmoor in 400 years.
Farmer Chris Jones, who recently appeared on the BBC's Cornwall with Simon Reeve, has enthusiastically welcomed beavers to his land.
The livestock rearer introduced two beavers into an enclosure around a stream at Woodland Valley Farm in 2017 and said they had started building their first dam within two nights.
They have since built a series of dams, creating what Mr Jones called "water terraces".
Mr Jones said the nearby village of Ladock has a history of repeated flooding, but the beavers had helped to slow the flow from the stream on his farm.
"The water from here doesn't all end land up in one lump down at the river at Ladock, adding to all the lumps from the other tributaries and then causing a flood," Mr Jones said.
He also said the pools the beavers created had sparked an "orchestra of life", adding: "There is no species that does as much as this one."
Ms Bishop said we spend large sums on flood relief schemes that echo the work of beavers, such as building dams to slow streams and rivers and make them meander more.
"It's bonkers, really," she said, adding: "The beaver will do it for free and, crucially, maintain it."
Not everyone is a beaver fan, though. There are two chief concerns from farmers and anglers.
Some farmers fear beavers could chomp on their crops, damage trees and create localised flooding.
"Any species introduction can have a massive impact on the countryside and farming," said Phil Jarvis, National Farmers' Union (NFU) environment forum chairman.
"Beaver activity can undermine riverbanks and impede farmland drainage, making fields too waterlogged for cropping or grazing.
"This seriously hinders farmers' ability to produce food for the nation."
The NFU says it is assisting as Defra creates a "long-term management plan" which, the union said, must include "an effective exit strategy" should "any major issues occur".
Anglers fear the beavers' dams could make it much harder for the likes of North Atlantic salmon and sea trout, both of which are already struggling population-wise, to reach their breeding grounds.
The Angling Trust has commissioned an independent "full literature review" to see whether or not beavers have caused such issues elsewhere, which is due to be published imminently.
"We are not saying no [to beavers]," said Mark Owen, head of freshwater at the trust, adding: "We are saying we need to look at the possible impact in far more detail.
"The report may come out and say there is no reason for concern, but we need to look at it because the study of the impact on fish so far has been sparse."
Mr Owen said there were no rivers in England where salmon were "doing well" and it was becoming an endangered species.
He said with low fish numbers it was vital to get salmon to their spawning grounds "without delay" and any potential obstacle was a cause for concern.
Though such fish can leap over barriers, each attempt saps their energy.
"Where you have healthy numbers, a small number of fish not making it isn't really a problem," Mr Owen said.
"But where the numbers are already low, you need them all to get through."
Ms Bishop said she recognised the concerns of both farmers and anglers and accepted that a "beaver in the wrong place can be a disaster". But she said there were "easy and cheap" fixes, with lessons already learned from releases in Germany and Norway, as well as those in Wales and Scotland.
Trees, for example, can be coated with a sand mixture or surrounded by a metal mesh to deter the beavers from munching on them.
And a small buffer of unfarmed land between the beavers' habitats and farmers' fields could reduce any clashes.
A 5m (16ft) buffer scheme in Germany saw beaver-farmer conflicts reduce by 95%, Ms Bishop said.
As for fish, beaver dams normally create side rivulets that travelling salmon and trout can use, she said.
"In the wild there are no beaver-fish conflicts. Any issues are because of us and our management of the rivers," Ms Bishop said.
And ultimately beavers can be moved or, in the most extreme cases, culled under licence as is happening in Scotland.
A Defra spokesman said: "We are firmly committed to providing opportunities to reintroduce formerly native species, such as beavers, where the benefits for the environment, people and the economy are clear.
"But we also understand that there are implications for landowners, and we will take care to ensure that all potential impacts are carefully considered, and a consultation on our national approach and management will open early next year."
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Housing benefit is an important means-tested benefit for people on low incomes which helps them to pay their rent. | That can be rent paid to a council, housing association or a private landlord.
The rules are set by the government and the benefit itself is administered by local councils.
The rules changed on 1 April 2011 and there are more changes in the pipeline.
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A hearing was held in the cells below a courtroom when two men charged with murder refused to appear in court. | Boxer Tom Bell, 21, was shot through a window at the Maple Tree in Woodfield Way, Balby, South Yorkshire, on 17 January and died later in hospital.
Joseph Bennia, 28, from Balby, and Scott Gocoul, 29, from Bilton, near Hull, were remanded in custody at Doncaster Magistrates' Court.
Both men will appear at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday.
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Nearly two-and-a-half-years ago, I did a ring-round of Britain's regulators to see if any of them might fancy regulating political advertising on social media, particularly outside an election period. | Amol RajanMedia editor@amolrajanon Twitter
It was obvious then, in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum and election of President Trump, that political campaigning had mostly shifted online. Even if a lot of leading politicians were slow on the uptake - still spending time courting print editors and columnists, for instance, whose influence has waned - they were increasingly surrounded by campaigners who did understand the world had changed.
Campaigners like Dominic Cummings.
Anyway, the regulators made various sounds that bore a striking resemblance to what you heard the last time you were juggling a hot potato.
The Electoral Commission said its focus is campaign finance.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said its focus is personal data.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it doesn't do political ads.
Fair enough. All were correct. Regulators regulate what they are told to regulate. It takes legislation, designed by parliamentarians - who ideally have a keen eye for detail and deep understanding of technology - to change the scope and power of a regulator.
Many months and moons on, I did a similar ring-round.
The Electoral Commission said its focus is campaign finance.
The Information Commissioner's Office said its focus is personal data.
The Advertising Standards Authority said it doesn't do political ads.
To quote a recent prime minister: "Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed."
Calling the shots
Which is not to say that nothing has changed in the broad - and it is very broad - area of regulating the internet. In fact, the UK has done quite a lot here, even, arguably, taken a lead.
Its Online Harms White Paper pledged to bring about the toughest laws for the internet anywhere in the world. The only trouble with that is, it was finalised in the furnace of a Tory leadership campaign, by a home secretary (Sajid Javid) who is now chancellor, and a culture secretary (Jeremy Wright) who has left his post.
The ICO has earned respect, and some admiration, across the world for its tough stance on Facebook, against whom it imposed a heavy fine - albeit a paltry footnote in the tech giant's global turnover.
And of course General Data Protection Regulation, better known as the European law GDPR, has given consumers much greater rights and awareness of the unspoken contracts they adhere to when they surf the web. But this was European rather than specifically British regulation.
The Electoral Commission point out that some of this terrain is regulated. But it urgently wants new powers to do it better.
They say all digital campaign material should have an imprint saying who is behind the campaign; that spending on election or referendum campaigns by foreign organisations or individuals should be prohibited; that fines should be bigger, and that their powers to obtain information outside a formal investigation should be strengthened.
In an interview for BBC News, Louise Edwards, the head of regulation for the Electoral Commission, is open about the remaining vulnerabilities of our current system.
Why the inaction?
But there is, frankly, something weird going on here. Everyone agrees that we urgently need new legislation in this terrain.
Indeed Damian Collins MP, the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, says the time has come for emergency legislation.
"Our electoral law is hopelessly out of date. And what that means is that people can set up dummy campaigns promoting causes that are there to support an official candidate, but hide who's doing it, hide where the money's coming from," he said.
"You can use technology to effectively launder money into political campaigns in micro donations including from overseas and our electoral law was established to make sure voters could see who's campaigning on what, who's paying for it, who it's there to promote. And yet technology allows people to sidestep all of those rules and regulations."
He went on: "I don't understand why the government is taking so long. I think we should be looking at emergency legislation to bring our electoral law up to date. At least to establish the basic principles that the same requirements that exist in a poster or a leaflet should exist in an online ad and on Facebook as well."
If Damian Collins MP can't understand why no new legislation has been passed, what hope the rest of us?
The usual explanation proffered is that Brexit took up most of the bandwidth of Theresa May's administration, stifling the efforts of many reformers. It doesn't help at all that digital matters cut across several government departments; or that the rate of churn among cabinet ministers at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is, at least to the civil servants who have to deliver their policies, an unfunny joke.
Nicky Morgan is the eighth secretary of state at the DCMS in the past nine years. In the same time, Google has had a single boss in the UK, Matt Brittin.
Moreover, regulating technology is exceptionally hard. Algorithms and coding are understood by very few. Categorising companies, which much of company law depends on, can be near impossible, given hugely different organisations might fall under the same broad banner. For instance, under "social media platform" you might group Facebook, whose revenues are in the tens of billions, with an app developed by dog-lovers in Huddersfield who want to share pooch pics.
Above all, the companies that need the most regulation are usually a) American; b) global in reach; and c) domiciled in places where they can limit their tax liability. Getting international agreement on how to approach these complex issues is very tough.
And perhaps there is another reason why regulation of this sector has been slow. I interviewed Katharine Dommett, director of Sheffield's Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics, who is now a special adviser to the Lords on these matters.
Like the Electoral Commission, she acknowledged that Facebook in particular has made significant strides in opening itself up to scrutiny. The Facebook ad library is manna from heaven to geeks, but something short of that to journalists. You can see plenty about who is advertising, and who is being reached by particular adverts; but it is still not always clear who is paying for these ads.
As I wrote in another blog post - The constant influence of dark ads - political donors who want to influence politics while avoiding the public scrutiny that comes from giving money directly to parties or politicians see social media as a great opportunity.
According to Dr Dommett, the significant but crucially limited strides made by big technology companies - who focus principally on growing their bottom line, while legislators have a thousand more worries and pressures every morning - have allowed them to set the terms of this debate.
Persuasion machines
It's important to understand that the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter are radical extensions of the 20th Century advertising industry. They are giant persuasion machines, which we feed with data every time we scroll, click, like and share. Each of our actions allows them to add detail to their picture of us.
That, in turn, gives those with a message to sell useful information about where to place their ads. Messages could be personal, commercial or political.
We have advanced and generally approved an effective regulation of adverts.
We have advanced and generally respected some very particular aspects of our politics.
But stick the two together, add in the internet, and you have a mess.
The influential campaigning group Who Targets Me has reported recently that Conservative spending is "creeping up". There was a big splurge after the ascension of Boris Johnson to the job of prime minister. This fact, and the re-assembly of the Vote Leave team under the leadership of Dominic Cummings, has re-ignited interest in this vast regulatory void in our democracy.
But this is about much more than one man, one party, or one plebiscite. Across the political spectrum and across the world, social media is giving a platform to powerful forces who are able to avoid scrutiny.
While it is true that, for reasons outlined above, coming up with effective regulation is tough, it's also true that at some point voters will begin to wonder why, years after we first started talking about it, voters are still being influenced by untraceable money.
If you're interested in issues such as these, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook; and subscribe to The Media Show podcast from BBC Radio 4.
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Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej has been treated for hydrocephalus, or an excessive build-up of fluid on the brain, and is now recovering, say authorities. | The 87-year-old, who has been in hospital since 31 May, also had a lung inflammation which has since subsided.
The monarch has had frequent bouts of ill health in recent years.
He is seen as a pillar of stability in Thailand which saw political strife culminating in last year's coup.
Though the king has no formal political role, he is seen by Thais as a symbol of unity, having ruled since 1946, and his health is closely watched.
Last October he had his gallbladder removed. He was in Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital for seven months, and was discharged in May this year, only to return to the hospital a few weeks later for medical tests.
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The announcement by Chancellor George Osborne that a tax on sugary drinks is to be introduced in the UK came as a surprise - ministers had spent months suggesting they were against the idea. But just how bold is it? | Nick TriggleHealth correspondent@nicktriggleon Twitter
There are two ways of looking at it. Firstly, the government has made a pretty radical step. Only a handful of countries have introduced such a levy and for a right-of-centre administration to do so is quite remarkable, and shows a strong commitment to tackling child obesity.
The other - less generous interpretation - is that they were backed into a corner. Not only did pretty much the whole health lobby want it to happen, but TV chef Jamie Oliver led a pretty impressive campaign - a petition he set up attracted more than 150,000 signatures. No government wants to get on the wrong side of public opinion.
Sugar in fizzy drinks
35g
The amount of sugar in a 330ml can of Coca-Cola (7 teaspoons)
30g
The recommended max. intake of sugar per day for those aged 11+
£520m The amount George Osborne expects the sugar tax to raise
But the more important question is whether this will have an impact on child obesity rates. One in 10 children start primary school obese. By the end, one in five are obese. If you add in those who are overweight, it's one in three.
There are many reasons for this. Children are more sedentary than they used to be - as are adults. And our diets are simply not good enough.
Earlier this year the Food Foundation produced a model of a typical family's diet. Every member consumed too much sugar and saturated fat and too little fibre, fruit, vegetables and oily fish.
So why tax sugar? All age groups consume at least twice as much as they should. Teenagers have three times as much - with sugary drinks their biggest source of the sweet stuff.
It's easy to understand why. A typical can of fizzy drink contains enough sugar to take both adults and children over their recommended amount.
There is evidence to suggest that a tax will have an impact on this. When Mexico introduced a tax of 10%, consumption fell by 6%.
Indeed, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which provides economic forecasts for ministers, has already done some modelling. Its assumption is that for the government to raise the £520m a year it has said it will, it will need to introduce a levy of 18p and 24p per litre (the plan is for two tax bands depending on how much sugar is in the drink).
The government has not confirmed whether this is the level being thought about as it wants to carry out a consultation. But it is as good a figure as we have at this stage.
The analysis predicts that there will be a 5% drop in sales of the highest sugar drinks, but a 2% rise in lower sugar drinks. That would seem to be a pretty minor gain.
But in a way campaigners say that misses the point. The sugar tax carries a symbolic message. That is to say obesity is now such a serious problem that it requires direct intervention. Short of a ban, a tax is arguably the next toughest measure open to a government.
However, this should not be seen in isolation. The government is expected to publish its much delayed child obesity strategy in the summer. That could include restrictions on advertising and marketing, as well as a sustained campaign to reduce the sugar content of foods and drinks across the board.
A sugar tax may be in the headlines at the moment, but it looks like it will just be the start of the fight against our bulging waistlines. We will have to wait and see to judge just how bold the government really is.
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The owner of a 19th Century water tower said he was putting it up for sale after his plans to develop it were turned down. | George Braithwaite had hoped to create an observatory, museum, offices, flats and a restaurant in the tower - known as Jumbo - in Colchester.
But his application, recommended for approval by Colchester Council, were turned down late last year.
Mr Braithwaite told BBC Essex he was putting the tower up for sale.
Jumbo was decommissioned by Anglian Water in 1987.
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Twenty years ago today, Oasis played the first of two concerts at Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England.
They were the biggest gigs of their era. The crowning glory of Britpop. Incredibly, one in 20 Britons applied for tickets. | By Mark SavageBBC Music reporter
A quarter of a million eventually got to see Liam, Noel, Bonehead, Guigsy and Whitey as they confirmed their status as the most popular British band since The Beatles. (A status that was swiftly rescinded when the band released their overblown, coke-addled third album Be Here Now 12 months later.)
But, in that moment, it was hard to argue with Noel when he strode on stage and declared: "You're making history, you lot."
"I'll never forget the sheer scale of it," says Bonehead, AKA guitarist Paul Arthurs.
"We flew in from London by helicopter and sort of circled the site. It landed behind the stage but we were like: 'Let's just do a once round and take it all in.' I'll never forget it."
Not that conditions were completely idyllic. According to one report, singer Liam Gallagher was not too enamoured with the catering, screaming about the state of the sausages and flinging a handful of corn on the cob to the floor.
Bonehead also found it difficult to prepare, thanks to an inconsiderate support act.
"We stayed in these Winnebago, caravan things at the back of the stage," he tells BBC 6 Music.
"I remember thinking 'I'll just have a quick hour in bed before we go on', and the Prodigy came on. If you've ever tried to sleep 20ft from the stage when the Prodigy were on live? Forget that."
Sleep deprived or not, the band blew away the fans. "Hello, hello, hello. Let's go," said Liam, before launching into a gut-punching opening salvo of Columbia, Acquiesce and Supersonic.
Almost two hours later, they ended their set with a celebratory cover of The Beatles' I Am The Walrus, capped by a spectacular fireworks display.
But it was the ballads, tucked away in the second half of the set, that really brought the crowd together - 125,000 voices per night united for the choruses of Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger.
Despite the band's later reputation for attracting a less refined crowd, the atmosphere was overwhelmingly good natured. In between support acts, the audience engaged in mock fights with empty paper cups, while police recorded only 10 arrests.
Attended by Kate Moss, Chris Evans and Mick Hucknall (who set tongues wagging by bringing along soap star Martine McCutcheon), the shows made headline news - but the importance was not immediately apparent to the musicians.
"It's weird," says John Power, whose band Cast were one of the support acts. "Sometimes these things, because you're involved in it, and because you see the bands all the time... it felt like it was just another a stepping stone to where this movement, or all these bands were going.
"Oasis were massive obviously. But I think, now, looking back on it, I don't think it could have got any bigger than that."
Always the most analytical member of Oasis, Noel Gallagher realised sooner than most that the band had peaked.
"I remember sitting there, at Knebworth, in the backstage area, and someone saying, 'Well, what now?' And I was like, 'I couldn't tell ya,'" he later told Uncut magazine.
"And that was how I felt for a good couple of years afterwards. I really suffered. It's like, what do you do when you've done everything? You kind of sink into boredom. Kind of directionless."
Looking back, Power agrees: "I think maybe that is the time where maybe [Britpop] started to slowly come down a bit, like.
"That doesn't mean there wasn't great performances going on and great music being made - but you can only contain so much fizz in a can before you've got to pop it."
For fans, however, Knebworth is a fond memory (even if the queues for the toilets and food stalls remain a nightmare).
The gigs were even enough to rile Liam's arch-enemy Robbie Williams into booking three nights at Knebworth, before allegedly asking Oasis to support him in a letter accompanied by a pair of tap dancing shoes.
Not everyone was so bowled over, though.
Matthew Wright, writing in The Mirror, called the shows "as flat as stale champagne", prompting a foul-mouthed phone call from Noel, who told him: "That's the last time you have anything to do with my [expletive] band."
Meanwhile, Henry Lytton Cobbold, who owns the Knebworth estate, has an altogether more unique perspective on the weekend's events.
"Amusingly, Noel Gallagher on Sunday morning, decided he wanted a bath, so he came up to the back door of Knebworth House, rang the doorbell and asked if he could have a bath," he recalls.
"My dad, who was in the house at the time, showed him up to the Queen Elizabeth bathroom - and brought him a bottle of champagne.
"I've since read him describe that he was served champagne by liveried servants, but it was actually my dad!
"He then wrote in the Knebworth House guest book: 'Noel Gallagher (clean!)'
"As an historic house with an archivist and a museum, those things now become part of our collection.
"I just wish we'd kept the soap."
You can hear more about Oasis's landmark Knebworth gigs on Steve Lamacq's BBC 6 Music show from 16:00 BST on Wednesday. The programme will conclude with a broadcast of the concert, as originally heard on BBC Radio 1 in 1996.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram at bbcnewsents, or email [email protected].
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Ireland will reopen its consulate in Cardiff later this year. | It comes after the country closed its Welsh diplomatic office in 2009 in the midst of the financial crisis.
The move is a "concrete recognition" of the importance of sustaining political and economic ties with Wales after Brexit, the Irish government said.
It is expected to open by June 2019. Planning for where it would be based is currently underway, the government added.
"The United Kingdom is Ireland's nearest neighbour and a hugely significant economic partner. Maintaining and growing our relationship beyond any UK exit from the European Union is paramount," a spokesman for the department said.
"The re-opening of the Consulate General in Cardiff would be an important element in deepening this key partnership.
"It is a concrete recognition of the importance of our political and economic ties with Wales and sustaining those links after Brexit."
The spokesman said Wales is Ireland's fourth largest trading partner, with 85 Irish companies holding a presence in Wales and employing just over 5,500 people.
Media Wales reported in 2009 that former first minister Rhodri Morgan had called for Ireland to keep the consulate open when its closure was announced.
The department said the Welsh Government had been told at the time that the decision was taken for "financial reasons only, and that Ireland would look to reopen the consulate when the situation improved."
"The Welsh Government has welcomed the announcement that the consulate will be re-opened and there has already been engagement between our administrations on building further cooperation once the consulate is in place," the spokesman added.
The Director-General of the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce, John McGrane, said it was an "extremely welcome announcement".
"It's affirmation of the very strong bonds that exists between Wales and Ireland. Wales is an extremely important linkage for Irish trade and Ireland is an important customer for Wales," he said.
Welsh minister for international relations, Eluned Morgan, tweeted that she looked forward "to working collaboratively with our closest neighbour in Cardiff as we continue to strengthen political and economic ties between our two great nations".
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In the early 19th Century, it was fashionable for Europeans to collect wild animals from around the globe, bring them home and put them on display. One French dealer went further, bringing back the body of an African warrior. Dutch writer Frank Westerman came across the exhibit in a Spanish museum 30 years ago, and was determined to trace the man's history. | WARNING: This story contains an image some readers may find disturbing
A decorative chain-link fence in the national colours - blue, white and black - marks the grave of one of the most famous, but least enviable sons of Botswana: "El Negro". His resting place in a public park in the city of Gaborone, under a tree trunk and some rocks, is reminiscent of the tomb of an unknown soldier.
A metal plaque reads:
El Negro
Died c. 1830
Son of Africa
Carried to Europe in Death
Returned Home to African Soil
October 2000
His fame comes from his posthumous travels - lasting 170 years - as a museum exhibit in France and Spain. Generations of Europeans gaped at his half-naked body, which had been stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist. There he stood, nameless, exhibited like a trophy.
Back in 1983, as a university student from The Netherlands, I accidentally came across him on a hitchhiking trip to Spain. I had spent a night in the town of Banyoles, an hour north of Barcelona. The entrance of the Darder Museum of Natural History, behind a trio of leafless plane trees, happened to be next door.
"He's real, you know," a schoolgirl shouted at me.
"Who's real?"
"El Negro!" Her voice blared out over the square - accompanied by the snorts and laughter of her friends.
The next instant an elderly woman stepped out of the hairdressing salon with a cardigan draped over her shoulders. A fragile lady with a pointy chin graced by a few single hairs, she turned a key ring around in her fingers like a rosary. Senora Lola opened up the museum, sold me a ticket and pointed in the direction of the reptile room.
"That way," she ordered. "Then go through the rooms clockwise."
As I was on my way to the Human Room, an annex of the Mammal Room, past a climbing wall with apes and the skeleton of a gorilla, my merriment gave way to a shudder. There he was, the stuffed Negro of Banyoles. A spear in his right hand, a shield in his left. Bending slightly, shoulders raised. Half-naked, with just a raffia decoration and a coarse orange loincloth.
El Negro turned out to be an adult male, skin and bones, who hardly came up to one's elbow. He was standing in a glass case in the middle of the carpet.
This was not Madame Tussaud's. I was not staring at an illusion of authenticity - this black man was neither a cast nor some kind of mummy. He was a human being, displayed like yet another wildlife specimen. History dictated that the taxidermist was a white European and his object a black African. The reverse was unimaginable. I flushed and felt the roots of my hair prickling - simply from a diffuse sense of shame.
Senora Lola didn't have an explanation. She didn't even have a catalogue or a brochure. She tapped a carousel postcard stand and stared at me through her glasses. I took a card of El Negro and read on the back: Museo Darder - Banyoles. Bechuana.
"Bechuana?"
Senora Lola kept staring at me. Head back, chin jutting forward. "The cards are 40 pesetas each," she said.
I bought two.
Twenty years later I decided to write a book about El Negro's extraordinary journey from Botswana (Bechuana) to Banyoles and back again.
The story begins with Jules Verreaux, a French dealer in "naturalia", who in 1831 witnessed the burial of a Tswana warrior in the African interior, a few days' travel north of Capetown, and then returned at night - "not without danger to my own life" - to dig up the body and steal the skin, the skull and a few bones.
With the help of metal wire acting as a spine, wooden boards as shoulder blades, and stuffed with newspapers, Verreaux prepared and preserved the stolen body parts. Then he shipped him to Paris, along with a batch of stuffed animals in crates. In 1831 the African's body appeared in a showroom at No 3, Rue Saint Fiacre.
In a review, the newspaper Le Constitutionnel praised the fearlessness of Jules Verreaux, who must have faced dangers "amid natives who are as wild as they are black". This article set the tone, and the "individual of the Bechuana people" attracted more attention than the giraffes, hyenas or ostriches. "He is small in posture, black-skinned, and his head is covered in woolly frizzy hair," the newspaper said.
More than half a century later, the "Bechuana" popped up in Spain. On the fringes of the world exhibition in Barcelona in 1888, the Spanish vet Francisco Darder presented him in a catalogue as "El Betchuanas", complete with a drawing in which he is seen wearing raffia finery and holding a spear and a shield.
By the 20th Century, having been brought over to Banyoles, a small city at the foot of the Pyrenees, his origins had been largely forgotten - on his pedestal was mistakenly written "Bushman of the Kalahari". In the decades that followed, the link to his Tswana origins faded even further and he became known simply as "El Negro".
At some point, the revealing loincloth that Jules Verreaux had decked him out in was replaced by the Roman-Catholic curators of the Banyoles museum with a more demure orange skirt. His skin was given a layer of shoe polish to make him seem blacker than he was.
Standing in his display case, slightly bowed and with a piercing gaze, El Negro embodied in a poignant and harrowing way, the darkest aspects of Europe's colonial past. He confronted visitors head-on with theories of "scientific racism" - the classification of people according to their supposed inferiority or superiority on the basis of skull measurements and other false assumptions.
As the 20th Century progressed, El Negro became more and more of an anachronism. Not only was there increasing guilt and awareness of the fact that his body and grave had been violated, but as a European artefact from the 19th Century he reflected ideas that had become universally untenable.
Everything began to shift in 1992 when a Spanish doctor of Haitian origin suggested, in a letter to El Pais, that El Negro should be removed from the museum. The Olympic Games were coming to Barcelona that year and the lake of Banyoles was the venue for the rowing competitions. Surely, wrote Dr Alphonse Arcelin, any athletes and spectators who visited the local museum would take offence at the sight of a stuffed black man.
Arcelin's call was supported by prominent names such as the US pastor Jesse Jackson and basketball player "Magic" Johnson. The Ghanaian Kofi Annan, then still Assistant Secretary-General of the UN, condemned the exhibit as "repulsive" and "barbarically insensitive".
But due to heavy resistance among the Catalan people, who embraced El Negro as a "national" treasure, it was not until March 1997 that El Negro disappeared from public view and "Object 1004" was put into storage. Three years later, in the autumn of 2000, he began his final journey home.
Following long consultations with the Organisation for African Unity, Spain had agreed to repatriate the human remains to Botswana for a ceremonial reburial in African soil. The first stage of his repatriation was a night ride in a truck to Madrid.
Once in the capital, his stuffed body was divested of its non-human additions, such as his glass eyes. El Negro was dismantled - as if the film of the preparations that Jules Verreaux carried out 170 years earlier was simply rewound.
His skin, however, turned out to be hard and crusty - it crumbled. Because of this, and because of the treatment with shoe polish, it was decided to keep it in Spain. According to one newspaper report it was left behind at the Museum of Anthropology in Madrid.
So the coffin, destined for Botswana, contained only the skull and certain arm and leg bones.
The remains of the Tswana warrior lay in state for a day in the capital Gaborone, where an estimated 10,000 people walked past to pay their last respects. The following day, 5 October 2000, he was committed to earth in a fenced-off area in the Tsholofelo park.
It was a Christian burial. "In the spirit of Jesus Christ," the priest said with his hand on the Bible, "who also suffered." An awning, supported by two rows of tent poles, protected the guests of honour from the sun.
"We are prepared to forgive," said the then-Foreign Minister Mompati Merafhe to the assembled mourners. "But we must not forget the crimes of the past, so that we don't repeat them."
Blessings were pronounced, there was singing and dancing. Buglers wearing white gloves sounded a last salute.
Subsequently, the grave was neglected for many years, the field around it being used as a football pitch. Lately however, the Botswanan government has restored and enhanced the site with a visitor's centre and explanatory signs.
But in 2016 it is still not known who this "son of Africa" was, what his name was, or exactly where he came from.
An autopsy, carried out in a Catalan hospital in 1995, nevertheless brought some things to light. The man who became world-renowned as El Negro lived to be about 27 years old. When alive, he stood between 1.35m and 1.4m tall (between 4ft 5in and 4ft 7in). He probably died of pneumonia.
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Dramatic moments here at the climate talks in Warsaw. | Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent@mattmcgrathbbcon Twitter
A Polish Government reshuffle saw their environment minister get the order of the boot. Poor Marcin Korolec has also been chairing this Conference of the Parties (Cop) with mixed success.
But he didn't lose his post because of the glum state of the negotiations - ironically his political bosses weren't sure he was the right man to handle shale gas in Poland.
And I thought fracking was supposed to create jobs?
The conference was also "rocked" by a walkout by delegates from developing countries. They were angry about the crucial issue of loss and damage and during a very late session, they walked out, raging with indignity into the cold Polish night.
Or perhaps they didn't.
By other accounts, several negotiators did actually walk out, but only to catch the last bus home!
This group of countries, called G77 plus China, in the language of the Cop, were deeply incensed by the richer countries simply refusing to countenance a new arrangement on loss and damage that would see them legally on the hook for the impacts of rising temperatures.
In the words of EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard this concept is a red line for Europe.
"We cannot have a system where there will be automatic compensation whenever severe weather events are happening one place or the other around the planet, you will understand why that is not feasible," she said.
But it wasn't all fractious infighting about mind numbing details.
Bamboo bicycle
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon put on a crash helmet, not to survive the brickbats of angry negotiators, but to steer a bamboo bicycle around the conference centre.
Mr Ban was highlighting a project called Momentum for Change, that includes the Ghanaian bamboo bicycle project.
This company made 800 of these bikes last year, which not only benefits the environment by using bamboo but gives jobs and crucial transport to villagers in many parts of Africa.
Mr Ban had opened the ministerial segment of this meeting yesterday to the strains of some noodly jazz laid on by the Polish government.
In a surreal scene, a Ukranian artist drew powerful climate-related pictures in sand that were projected on the big screen - some wag suggested that given the attachment of Poland to anthracite, perhaps she should have used coal dust instead.
Mr Ban tried to gee up the participants by telling them he had previously been to a successful climate meeting in Poland in 2008.
Perhaps it wasn't the right image. The car crash that became the Copenhagen Cop in 2009, had really started to unravel the year before in Poznan.
Many fear that Warsaw will foreshadow similar problems when the climate bus pulls into Paris in 2015.
Well at least Mr Ban didn't tell us, for the umpteenth time, that the heat is on.
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What do you need to run a TV channel? Not much these days - get a cheap video camera and access to the internet, and you can soon be a TV tycoon, albeit on a very small scale. But I've been meeting two channels run by young British entrepreneurs who are showing the TV establishment the way to connect audiences and grow businesses in a hurry.
| Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter
SB.TV
The first is 21-year-old Jamal Edwards. He grew up on a west London housing estate and left school with few qualifications, but he now has a business called SB.TV, offering all sorts of original video content on YouTube and making some serious money from it.
When I popped into his recently acquired offices in Ladbroke Grove, where three of his staff were hard at work, he told me how it got started:
"When I was 14 or 15, I got a video camera for Christmas and I started going out on my estate and filming lots of rappers - and from there it snowballed. I just kept filming every day."
While working by day in a clothes shop, by night he taught himself about making videos and running a business by watching online tutorials. Eventually a cheque arrived from YouTube for the revenue from adverts placed around his videos. "I thought yeah I can give up working at Topman and make it a business."
The channel has had over 100 million views, and Jamal is very proud that every bit of the content has been filmed by his team. Some artists that have been featured on SB.TV from Jessie J to Ed Sheeran have seen their profiles boosted - for others it's been the only way to get their music to an audience. Jamal says the key for his business is to build a community, and respond to what its members want.
Google has already featured Jamal Edwards in an advert, and mainstream TV and music firms are watching SB.TV very closely, desperate to understand the connection it has with its audience.
I would not be surprised to see an approach from a potential buyer, but Jamal says he's just concentrating on growing his channel: "I'm just trying to think of new fresh ideas, keep it buzzing. It's gonna go worldwide man!" he told me. "Music, fashion, sport comedy, just gonna build it up."
Unless you're a teenage gamer, you may never have heard of Yogscast, but it is an even bigger video phenomenon than SB.TV. Much bigger, in fact, with one billion views to its YouTube channel so far, and three million people tuning in each day.
I first spotted it when browsing through the "most viewed" section on YouTube. It seems to be packed with videos about games, all of them accompanied by a slightly eccentric commentary by two young men.
"That's Simon and Lewis from Yogscast, dad," my teenage online game-obsessed son explained, in a voice which suggested that anyone who hadn't heard of them must have been asleep for 100 years.
So I went to meet Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane in their shiny new offices in Bristol, global headquarters of a business which has only recently moved out of their respective bedrooms.
Lewis was working as a freelance journalist four years ago and played online games with a group of people including Simon. "We would all group together to kill virtual dragons."
He decided that the entertaining chat that happened during the games needed to be put online, so he started making videos featuring him and Simon - who he hadn't even met in real life at that stage.
Their double act soon proved popular, especially when they began to focus on Minecraft, a creative game which allows players to build their own worlds and adventures. Then came a key moment: "I woke up on Christmas Day in 2010 and we were the most viewed video on YouTube," Lewis explained. "That was when it hit me that this was maybe worth quitting our jobs for and having a good go at it."
They have certainly had a good go. Yogscast has assembled a team of more than a dozen people who can all make and edit videos in their new studios in Bristol. Every day, they upload at least one video, with an average length of 15 minutes, and they are working on improving the production values. "If you don't produce good quality videos, then people won't come back," says Lewis. "We listen very carefully to what our community says."
They are building a network of people making similar videos, and there is an exciting new project, their own video game. Using the crowdfunding site Kickstarter they have raised over $500,000 to create Yogventures, in collaboration with a Los Angeles based game developer. It sounds rather like Minecraft, and if it succeeds on that scale when it launches next year, then Yogscast will be a serious player in the games world as well as in online video.
So what are their ambitions? "I want to be the next Rupert Murdoch," Simon told me - though I'm not entirely clear how serious he was. But Lewis, the straight man in the comedy duo, seems pretty focussed on expanding Yogscast and making increasingly professional video content.
But has either of these businesses really got a chance to make an impact on TV? When I spoke to the respected media analyst Theresa Wise she freely admitted she'd never heard of either of them - but was impressed by what I told her about their ambitions.
She warned, however, that this was a hits-driven business: "There are two issues - keeping generating the hits and convincing people you're still cool. When dads start to like you there's a danger that people switch to other things."
It is, in her words, a "fickle old business". But wouldn't it be great to see Jamal Edwards and the Yogscast duo Simon and Lewis prove that in the internet age Britain can create TV tycoons with staying power?
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Welcome to the Daily and Sunday Politics manifesto tracker. As the name suggests, it tracks the progress the government is making - or not - in achieving the promises made by the Conservatives in their 2015 general election manifesto and major policy announcements. | The traffic light scorecard above shows the current status of all of the policies. The tracker will be updated over the course of this parliament.
The tracker has been broken down into policy areas, which can be explored by clicking on each of the links below.
Manifesto tracker by theme
This section deals with constitutional matters.
CONSTITUTION
Scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights
- Manifesto, page 60
Implement Wales' devolution settlement
- Manifesto, page 70
Legislate to deliver the historic deal for Greater Manchester, which will devolve powers and budgets and lead to the creation of a directly elected Mayor for Greater Manchester
- Manifesto, page 13
English votes for English laws
- Manifesto, page 69
Reduce the number of MPs to 600
- Manifesto, page 49
A new Scotland Bill will be in the first Queen's Speech and will be introduced in the first session of a new parliament
- Manifesto, page 70
Implement the recommendations of the Smith Commission so that more than 50% of the Scottish Parliament's budget will be funded from revenues raised in Scotland and it will have significant new welfare powers
- Manifesto, page 70
Work to implement fully and faithfully the historic Stormont House Agreement
- Manifesto, page 71
Continue to seek agreement on a comprehensive package of party funding reform
- Manifesto, page 49
Strikes should only ever be the result of a clear, positive decision based on a ballot in which at least half the workforce has voted
- Manifesto, page 18
Introduce a strike threshold for essential public services (health, education, fire and transport) of at least 40% of those entitled to take part
- Manifesto, page 18
Repeal nonsensical restrictions banning employers from hiring agency staff to provide essential cover during strikes
- Manifesto, page 19
Ensure strikes cannot be called on the basis of ballots conducted years before
- Manifesto, page 19
Legislate to ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for union subscriptions
- Manifesto, page 19
Tighten the rules around taxpayer-funded paid "facility time" for union representatives
- Manifesto, page 19
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A 16-year-old girl suffered "significant" injuries when she was stabbed in the neck at the grounds of a church, police said. | Staffordshire Police said the teenager was "seriously assaulted" at All Saints Church in Branston Road, Burton-upon-Trent at about 19:00 GMT on Monday.
The force said she was treated at Queen's Hospital in the town.
The area around the church was sealed off, police said, to allow forensic examinations to take place.
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"France derails Brexit talks," is the Times' main headline . It says the suspension of trade negotiations last night came after the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, "ambushed" Britain at the insistence of French President Emmanuel Macron. | By BBC NewsStaff
The European Union is said to want access to the UK's fishing waters for up to ten years after the end of the transition period, according to the Daily Telegraph. It says a senior government source described the EU's demands as "ridiculous" and "frankly laughable". The paper reports Boris Johnson could now make a "personal plea" to Mr Macron this weekend to break the deadlock.
The latest development is neatly characterised by the Daily Mail's main headline as "Le bust-up". According to the paper, a close ally of Mr Macron said he would veto any trade deal that went against French interests.
The Financial Times reports that - despite the "brinkmanship and briefings" - bookmakers are putting the chances of an agreement being reached at more than 80%.
The Guardian reports that if an agreement is reached later than the beginning of next week, government officials are preparing to ask MPs to remain in parliament until two days before Christmas to pass the legislation.
Away from Brexit, the i weekend says the government is revisiting the idea of immunity passports to establish whether greater freedoms could be granted to people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19.
It says Downing Street officials are also considering short-term "freedom passes" to allow anyone shown to be free of the virus to meet friends or attend events.
Several papers feature images and reports of the Queen's first attempt at "virtual diplomacy".
The Daily Mail says the monarch received zoom lessons from Princess Anne before meeting ambassadors and their families at Buckingham Palace via a video link from Windsor Castle.
The ambassadors still had to bow or curtsey in front of the computer screen - while the Daily Telegraph reports that another ceremonial aspect that remained was the state carriages sent to pick up the ambassadors from their residences.
The Sun says it hopes the guests were still offered a Ferrero Rocher chocolate.
'Major victory' for Essex girls
The Times reports on what it calls a "major victory" for The Essex Girls Liberation Front. The Oxford University Press has agreed to remove a definition of "Essex Girl" from its dictionary for foreign language students trying to learn English.
The publication had said the term could be best defined as "a type of young woman who is not intelligent, dresses badly and talks in a loud and ugly way". The OED says it acted not because the phrase was offensive, but because it was falling out of use.
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Pro-independence parties have won a slim majority in the Catalan parliament. The regional election backfired on the Spanish government, but for now Madrid remains firmly in control, under emergency powers invoked in October. | What if Catalonia were to secede eventually - would it be able to stand on its own two feet?
Trappings of statehood
To the casual observer, Catalonia looks like it has already got many of the trappings of a state. Flags. A parliament. But its leader, Carles Puigdemont, is in self-imposed exile in Belgium.
The region has its own police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra. It has its own broadcast regulator, and even boasts a series of foreign "missions" - mini embassies that promote trade and investment in Catalonia around the world. Catalonia delivers some public services already - schools and healthcare, for example.
There'd be much more to set up in the event of independence, though. Border control. Customs. Proper international relations. Defence. A central bank. Inland revenue. Air traffic control.
All of these are currently run by Madrid.
But assuming it did create these new institutions - would it be able to pay for them?
Reasons to be cheerful
"Madrid nos roba" is a popular secessionist slogan - "Madrid is robbing us". The received wisdom is that comparatively wealthy Catalonia pays in more than it gets out of the Spanish state.
Catalonia is certainly rich compared with other parts of Spain. It is home to just 16% of the Spanish population, but 19% of its GDP and more than a quarter of Spain's foreign exports.
It punches above its weight in terms of tourism too - 18 million of Spain's 75 million tourists chose Catalonia as their primary destination last year, easily the most visited region.
Tarragona has one of Europe's largest chemical hubs.
Barcelona is one of the EU's top 20 ports by weight of goods handled.
About a third of the working population has some form of tertiary education.
It's also true that Catalans pay more in taxes than is spent on their region.
In 2014, the last year the Spanish government has figures for, Catalans paid nearly €10bn (£8.9bn) more in taxes than reached their region in public spending. Would an independent Catalonia get the difference back?
Some have argued that even if Catalonia gained a tax boost from independence, that might get swallowed up by having to create new public institutions and run them without the same economies of scale.
And some argue that it makes sense for the state to redistribute money from richer to poorer regions in this way.
A harder reckoning
Perhaps of greater concern is Catalonia's public debt.
The Catalan government owes €77bn (£68bn) at the last count, or 35.4% of Catalonia's GDP. Of that, €52bn is owed to the Spanish government.
In 2012, the Spanish government set up a special fund to provide cash to the regions, who were unable to borrow money on the international markets after the financial crisis. Catalonia has been by far the biggest beneficiary of this scheme, taking €67bn since it began.
Not only would Catalonia lose access to that scheme, but it would raise the question of how much debt Catalonia would be willing to repay after independence.
That question would surely cast a shadow over any negotiations. And on top of the sum owed by the regional government - would Madrid expect Barcelona to shoulder a share of the Spanish national debt?
Involuntary Catalexit?
The uncertainty created by the struggle for independence has already hit the Catalan economy.
More than 3,100 companies have moved their legal headquarters out of the region, including major banks Caixabank and Banco de Sabadell.
At least part of the uncertainty is over Catalonia's relationship with Europe.
Two-thirds of Catalonia's foreign exports go to the EU. It would need to reapply to become a member if it seceded from Spain - it wouldn't get in automatically or immediately.
And it would require all EU members to agree - including Spain.
Some in the pro-independence camp feel that Catalonia could settle for single-market membership without joining the EU. Catalans may well be happy to pay for access, and continue to accept free movement of EU citizens across the region's borders.
But if Spain chose to, it could make life difficult for an independent Catalonia.
There is also the question of currency.
In 2015, the governor of the Bank of Spain warned Catalans independence would cause the region to drop out of the euro automatically, losing access to the European Central Bank.
Normally, new EU member states must apply to join the euro.
They have to meet certain criteria, such as their debt not being too large a percentage of their gross domestic product (GDP).
Even if they meet those criteria, a qualified majority of eurozone countries has to approve their entry.
In theory, that means even if Catalonia became a new EU member state, it may well take time to rejoin the eurozone - and Spain and its allies could block that.
In practice, we just don't know what would happen.
Nobody has ever declared independence from a member of the eurozone then asked to rejoin as a new country.
Could Catalonia use the euro without joining the eurozone? It does happen.
Some countries such as San Marino and Vatican City do so with the eurozone's blessing, since they're too small to ever become EU member states.
Others, such as Kosovo and Montenegro, use the euro without the EU's blessing, and so don't have access to the European Central Bank.
Again, whether either solution would be practical in Catalonia remains to be seen.
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Police are hunting a man who carried out an "unprovoked attack" on a postman who was delivering mail in Dumfries. | The assault took place at a block of flats on Syme Road at about 10:30 on Friday.
The attacker, who ran off, was described as wearing a light blue, hooded top with the hood up.
The postman suffered bruising to his face and a black eye. Police have asked anyone with information or who witnessed the attack to contact them.
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South Ribble MP Seema Kennedy has announced she will be standing down at the next general election. | The Conservative MP, a mother of three, said she would be focussing on other priorities in her life.
Mrs Kennedy, 45, has held the seat since 2015 and said it had been "a huge privilege" to serve as an MP "for the best place to live in the UK".
She said she was "most proud" of her work towards the appointment of a minister for loneliness.
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When a powerful earthquake and tsunami hit the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, hundreds of children were separated from their parents. More than 2,000 people died, with large areas being declared mass graves. But in recent weeks there have also been some extraordinary reunions.
| Rebecca HenschkeBBC Indonesian Editor
Fikri and Jumadil go missing
Martha Salilama had left the stove on.
When the earth shook with incredible power, she grabbed seven year old Fikri, her great nephew, and rushed out of the house.
They had been cooking together, packets of yellow rice with fried chicken to sell at a beach festival to mark Palu city's anniversary.
"With things crumbling and falling around them, they ran out into the open. They were terrified that they would get trapped inside," says her sister Selfi Salilama, Fikri's grandmother.
When the earth stopped shaking, Marta left Fikri with some neighbours who had gathered around a horse statue that sits on the Palu bay.
She then went home to turn off the stove.
"When she came back Fikri was gone," says Selfi.
What she found was a scene of horror, a trail of destruction left by gigantic waves that had pounded the bay.
When the quake hit five year old Jumadil was on the beach building sandcastles.
His grandmother, Ajarni, who was looking after him that day, was selling food to festival goers on the street above the beach.
He had been clingy that day, she remembers.
"He wanted to be carried all the time, so I carried him around on my hip. He finally got bored and asked to be put down and went off and played in the sand," she says.
When the first quake struck she tried frantically to reach him but failed.
It was chaotic, she says, with people running in all directions as the earth threw them around.
"When I got closer to the shore I saw a wall of black water heading towards me."
With the monstrous waves about to pound the bay, she could look no more and ran.
"I ran as fast as I could, I had no idea where I was running. When the water swept me away I clung on to a motorbike."
The waves finally dumped her in the parking lot of a hotel.
She had survived. But Jumadil was gone.
That's where her husband, Daeng, the boy's grandfather, found her.
"I didn't recognise her at first, because she was covered in mud and blood and was crying. I turned to someone I knew and said I am looking for my wife and they said - that's her!"
"Her hair was caked with mud and blood, it was like instant noodles. I picked her up and cried out for help."
A passing motorbike rider took them to the nearest hospital.
"I was worried she would lose too much blood. There were lots of aftershocks, it was terrifying," he remembers.
The desperate search
News reached Jumadil's mum, Susi Rahmatia, at home.
"My uncle rushed in and said 'there are children's corpses everywhere near the shore'. I collapsed and cried, I thought for sure my son had been killed by the waves."
"That night my husband went searching for him. When he came across a body of a child he broke down and cried."
In the morning the grandfather, Asmudin, joined the search.
"The air around the beach was filled with the smell of corpses. I searched and searched for hours barefoot. I looked under the rubble and in places I thought he might have been washed up," he says.
Seven year old Fikri's family were also desperately searching for him.
His grandmother, Selfi Salilama, says they feared he, too, was dead.
"At the hospital we opened body bag after body bag that had a child in it," she says.
"Each time a wave of fear washed over us. And we would say 'Allah make us strong enough to do this' - each time hoping it wasn't Fikri."
"We were almost certain that we had lost him. We knew his 10-year-old brother had died. But in my heart I had a little hope that perhaps Fikri had run away in time."
Fikri's parents find out
Fikri's parents live and work 600km away in Gorontalo.
With telecommunications down Selfi says she couldn't contact them. She was also a little scared to tell them.
"I didn't want everyone to panic and worry. We wanted to search first and give them news with some certainty," she says.
But given the scale of the disaster keeping it a secret was impossible.
"We saw it all on television. I was just speechless. My husband Iqbal left straight away for Palu. I stayed here to look after my younger children," Susila says.
When Iqbal As Sywie arrived to hear both his sons were missing, he was devastated.
"He was angry and very upset and was saying to us 'why didn't you take better care of my sons?' I had to calm him down telling him this was out of our hands. That if Allah wanted to take them we had to accept that."
They reported Fikri missing at child protection posts set up across the city.
They also did interviews with local television stations giving them details about the boy who was missing.
The break through
Jumadil's uncle posted a notice on a Facebook page for survivors in the city, hoping the picture of his nephew would jog someone's memory.
Sartini's daughter saw the picture and thought it bore a striking resemblance to the child her mother was looking after.
The wife of a local imam, Sartini, had met the boy at a police station in the aftermath of the quake.
She remembers that he was wailing uncontrollably, just repeating cries of "mummy" and "daddy".
"I only persuaded him by saying 'your mother is still buying milk for you'," she told AFP at the time. She befriended him and took care of him.
"What they saw on Facebook were old photos of Jumadil - so at first they weren't sure if it was really him," says his mother Susi.
"But when they read the details in the post about what he was wearing that day - a red striped shirt and that his pants were held up with a string because they were too big, that's when they knew it was the same boy."
A matching birthmark on the neck confirmed it was indeed Jumadil, setting the stage for a reunion.
"I couldn't sleep, I thought about him all night, wondering who saved my little boy," says Susi.
A reunion
Jumadil leaps off a motorbike into his mother's arms. Their emotional reunion after five long days is captured on film.
He clings to her while she smothers him in kisses, tears stream down both their faces. Jumadil crying so hard he is gasping for breath.
"He hugged me so tight like he never wanted to let go, his legs wrapped around me like a monkey," remembers Susi.
"We didn't speak. He was very scared. There were lots of people crowding around us. I just tried to show him that now everything was going to be alright."
She waited days before finally asking him what happened.
I asked him gently 'What happened that day, my little one? And he said 'I was playing in the sand and didn't understand why the whole world was shaking."
"So who picked you up, I asked? He said a police officer. We did try and find out who that was, but haven't been able to."
They believe he dodged the tsunami by a matter of minutes.
Fikri is found
More days passed by and Fikri's family were close to giving up hope - when a social worker arrived at their door.
"They had a photo and they said - Mrs, is this your grandson? And it was him! We started telling everyone, 'they have Fikri. They have found Fikri!' We all gathered around and just cried and cried."
"They told us that he was alive and living in North Morowali - we had no idea how he had gone there."
He had ended up 500km away.
It was not until they had Fikri in their arms, three weeks after he went missing, that the family understood how he had ended up there.
Twenty-year-old university student Kadek Ayu Dwi Mariati says she found Fikri on the side of the road.
He was injured, she remembers, and was crying out for his mother and father. He was only a wearing a t-shirt.
"To tell you the truth my first concern was saving my own life, I was in such a panic and was very scared," she said.
"But then I thought if I don't save this boy who will? I stopped and asked him where are your parents? He said they were gone and his house was destroyed, so I told him to come with me to higher ground."
When her parents reached Palu, a few days later, Fikri didn't want to leave her side.
"He didn't want to stay, he wanted to be with me. So he came home with us to our village," she says.
"I reported this to the police and social workers and told them if someone is looking for this child then he is with me. They told me, 'don't give him away to anyone' because there were fears of child trafficking at the time."
As the weeks passed with no news her family built up a close bond with Fikri.
"He was a really good kid. Wasn't any trouble at all. I do really miss him now and was a little sad to see him go but at the same time I am so grateful, that it turns out, he had a family still alive to go home to," she says.
The miracle
Their reunion was also captured on film. His family was told by social workers to wait in a tent - no one speaks and they look at their hands nervously.
Then he was brought in. "Praise God," they cried as they hugged Fikri and held him tenderly.
Fikri was beaming, wearing a neat checked shirt and jeans.
"We cried and hugged and hugged him," Selfi recalled.
"I was so happy but also sad. I was filled with joy that Allah had given us more time with him but also sad that it was someone else that saved him. We could only cry and give thanks to Allah."
The trauma
Fikri's parents have taken him back to live with them in Gorontalo. Schools are not back to normal in Palu and they want him close.
"He doesn't want to be left alone, even for a second, he said to us 'if you leave me and the earth shakes again where am I meant to go?," his mum Susila says over the phone.
"We have to wait for him outside the classroom. We don't talk about what happened. He just cries if it comes up. His older brother never came back."
His grandmother video calls with him often. "Show me your smile," she cries down the phone at him.
"Ah there you are! There is the most handsome boy in Gorontolo," she teases him.
Back to the beach
Jumadil too is still traumatised but each afternoon he has to go back to the same beach, to help his mother sell peanuts.
"He still has flashbacks, if the lights go off he jumps up and runs into my arms asking 'why are the lights off, Mum?' When the earthquake hit all the lights went off and it was black."
While we are talking at their stall another mother comes up and says her son was missing for four days.
He was caught up in the waves too, she says. Now it's a nightmare to get him to have a bath. He is terrified of water.
While his mum serves the customer, Jumadil's grandfather, Daeng, takes him for a walk through the rubble.
He still can't quite believe his grandson has come back.
"It's hard for an everyday guy like me to get my head around it," he says.
"If you think about it logically it's amazing he was saved, given the power of the waves that destroyed everything. Buildings crumbled so humans shouldn't really have stood a chance. Lots of police officers died. I really want to know who saved our boy."
"It's an absolute miracle he has come back."
All pictures copyright.
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More than £1m has been earmarked in Jersey to reduce waiting times for orthopaedics patients for bone, muscle and ligament care. | On average, patients currently have to wait about 28 weeks for an appointment.
Although this is a decrease from more than 40 weeks, managers said such waits were still unacceptable.
They said they hoped to use to the money from the Health Department to decrease waiting times further to a target of 12 weeks.
Michelle West, director of operations at the island's general hospital, said the money would be spent on support staff and an extra consultant.
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A warning has been issued after an ambulance was in collision with a car whose driver is thought to have fallen asleep at the wheel. | A tweet from West Midlands Ambulance Service said driving whilst tired was not "worth the risk".
Only minor injuries were reported in the crash on Birmingham's Aston Expressway at 06:30 BST, police said.
Central Motorway Police Group tweeted: "Please do not drive tired."
"Lucky minor injury, but it could of been a lot worse if not for the quick actions of the ambulance driver," the tweet continued.
West Midlands Police said no arrests had been made.
Related Internet Links
West Midlands Police
West Midlands Fire Service
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Stormont parties are considering the details of a draft deal to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland. | The text, New Decade, New Approach, was published by the British and Irish governments on Thursday night.
It sets out a plan of action for a new executive and commitments from the two governments.
Here are some of the key points in the 62-page document:
Health
Education
Petition of concern
Language and tradition
Infrastructure
Anything else?
UK government commitments
Irish government pledges
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So far, 2018 has been a rough year on the High Street. Toys R Us and Maplin have collapsed, while New Look and Mothercare have announced closures, as have Jamie's Italian, burger chain Byron and Prezzo. | By Karen HogganBusiness reporter
They're the latest victims of increased online shopping and higher overheads. The shift to online and more frequent food shopping also means some retailers have more store space than they need.
So what's happening to the space that's being freed up?
1. Gyms
Talk to anyone in retailing today and they'll tell you "experiences" are crucial - an effective way for bricks and mortar retailers to differentiate themselves from online.
Richard Lim, chief executive of Retail Economics, says experiences are about "what Amazon can't do".
Retailers need to create an interesting experience that "drives footfall and better loyalty and creates an environment that can't be replicated online", he adds. Gyms are a case in point and they've been busily snapping up empty retail space.
Low-cost operator The Gym Group has opened up in part of a former BHS in Walthamstow, north London. It's also rented excess space from Sainsbury's at its store at Murrayfield in Edinburgh.
Founder John Treharne says: "We have always converted retail space - there just happens to be more of it available today."
2. Crazy golf and climbing walls
And it's not just gyms getting in on the act. "Competitive socialising" is a big thing these days, says Colin Flinn, regional managing director of shopping centre owner intu, whose properties include Lakeside in Essex and the Trafford Centre in Manchester.
Ping-pong bars, trampoline parks, social darts, indoor golf, climbing walls, escape rooms and virtual reality games are all growing in popularity - and are on the hunt for suitable space.
That can be empty space in shops. For instance, crazy golf operator Swingers has moved into the first floor of the former BHS flagship store on London's Oxford Street.
Co-founder Matt Grech-Smith says snapping up the site was as "no-brainer", because it's "literally a stone's throw from the ultra-high footfall of Oxford Circus. Sites in a location as prime as this don't come along very often - especially sites this big."
But the big and successful shopping centres are also attracting activities. "Major regional [shopping] centres are becoming 'resorts'," says intu's Mr Flinn. "Customers can either pop in to do a quick shop or spend a full day with the family."
3. Prosecco and patisserie
A key focus for retailers and shopping centres is turning themselves into "destinations" - persuading people to visit and stay for longer, rather than simply ordering stuff online.
Next's revamped store in Manchester's Arndale Centre includes a prosecco bar, a barber, a children's activity centre and, in the summer, a car showroom. It's also in talks with a spa operator.
A Next spokeswoman says the idea is to give "people a real reason to come to the store - people aren't browsing as much as they were before. Lots of things under one roof is far more appealing to a shopper."
Debenhams has also gone down this route. Boss Sergio Bucher says the focus of its strategy is leisure and "social shopping".
It's ramped up its food offering and the likes of Patisserie Valerie and Nandos are now in some stores.
It has also teamed up with gym operator Sweat, with the first gym due to open later this year, and taken a stake in beauty company Blow Ltd, which has opened salons in store.
"When people go shopping with friends, they tend to spend more," says a Debenhams spokesperson. "Destination is really important for all department store operators."
Recently, department store group John Lewis kitted out a fully furnished apartment in three of its stores. Customers could stay overnight and order dinner, while everything in the flat was for sale.
The department store group says customers are increasingly using its stores as a "leisure destination" and as a convenient place for click-and-collect.
"This means that our strategy in shops focuses much more on experiences and giving people a reason to come in and visit us," says a spokeswoman.
4. Houses and flats
In some instances, there may be no option but to admit the empty space is not going to work for retail or leisure, either in a town centre or in a worn-out shopping centre. That's when it's time to turn it into residential property.
"It makes sense, because we've got too many shops and a lack of flats." says Richard Lim of Retail Economics.
The British Property Federation's chief executive, Melanie Leech, agrees: "We think there's a huge opportunity from the empty retail outlets.
"We have a huge shortage of residential stock and we know people increasingly want to live in towns and cities."
5. Discounting and convenience
Of course, some retailers are still expanding and looking for new space. Leading the charge are discounters Aldi and Lidl, whose popularity is surging.
The Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) reckons that by 2022, one of every £7 spent on groceries will go to the discounters, with the total value of their sales jumping by nearly 50% between 2017 and 2022 to about £30bn.
Lidl has more than 700 stores in the UK and plans to open 50 this year alone, while Aldi has more than 750 stores and will open 70 this year.
Convenience stores run by the big supermarket chains are also springing up in many neighbourhood locations as more and more people abandon the weekly shop and leave decisions about an evening meal to the last minute.
As a result, the IGD expects convenience store sales to rise by nearly 18% to about £47bn by 2022.
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Former BHS owner Sir Philip Green has given evidence to the Business and the Work and Pensions select committees, which are investigating the demise of the 164-store group. The BBC's Jamie Robertson was in the room to witness the drama of the six-hour marathon. | A sketch by Jamie RobertsonBusiness reporter, BBC News
The first thing you notice as former BHS owner Sir Philip Green walks into the Committee Room is the sun tan. Sir Philip has obviously been having more time in the sun than the MPs cross-questioning him.
Maybe they should get out more, though Monaco, where Sir Philip has his home might be a bit beyond their means. "I went there, I met the people, so I moved there," he replied when he was asked why he lived in the Mediterranean principality.
Oddly he mentioned nothing about its benevolent tax regime, which might, on reflection, have been the point of the question.
And then there were the hand gestures. MPs are remarkably static when they ask their questions, so when he threw his hands in the air and demanded of Richard Graham: "Are we in the same room? I don't think we are," there was a hint of the ham actor auditioning before a group of producers for a part in a Victorian melodrama.
And like every actor looking for a part, he wants to show due deference to his listeners.
"With due respect, sir," punctuates every other sentence. "Respectively sir." "With the greatest respect." And then he contradicts them, points at one MP and then another and waves his hands a little more.
But there is something else an actor does - control his audience. Sir Philip is working at it from the beginning. Halfway through an answer to Michelle Thompson, he turned on another MP, Richard Fuller, and told him to stop staring at him.
Mr Fuller looked a little hurt. And bearing in mind that there were 11 MPs all staring at him, it seemed a rather unreasonable request.
And what was his answer to the MPs questions? Well, there are a lot of "I don't remembers". It seems the appearance of large holes in BHS' pension fund slipped by unnoticed by the King of the High Street.
"I'm not running away," he cried. "I'm here voluntarily." Indeed, Sir Philip was very much there. He has what an actor might call, inadequately, "presence".
Then there was the sale of BHS to Mr Chappell, a former bankrupt, a racing driver and an associate of a known fraudster.
MP Richard Graham said that Sir Philip had described Mr Chappell as living in a fantasy land.
Sir Philip: "I did not."
Mr Graham insisted he had.
Sir Philip: "When did I say that?" and he looked around the room, his face a mask of astonishment, a man sorely maligned.
The MPs conferred amidst much nodding of heads and agreed that Sir Philip had said such a thing. They are, after all, the producers of this melodrama. Sir Philip is amazed and shakes his head, a picture of disbelief.
And then he is back on the attack: "No, no, no, no, no, with all due respect..."
He is interrupting again. Mr Graham ploughs on. He is a former diplomat, soft-spoken and polite.
Sir Philip's hands wave frantically and the questions keep on coming. Sir Philip turns the questions back on the MPs. At one point he ignores a question from one, and turns to another and asks him to continue.
And then the inevitable: "Sir Philip, we are asking the questions, not you."
Sir Philip bows his head briefly.
A moment later, the timing perfect, he's back: "I just don't like the way you are asking the question."
He butts in, he demands to answer questions, the committee chair demands to move on. He won't. "We must move on." He won't. Move on. He won't. Move on.
How long can this drama go on for? The answer is: a long time. But after more than five hours the performance is finally over. Longer than Hamlet.
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With the world's biggest bike race starting in Leeds on 5 July, BBC Yorkshire's Tour de France correspondent Matt Slater rounds up the best of the gossip, opinion and stories, on and off the bike, and also tries to explain some of cycling's unique lingo.
TOP STORIES | War of the Roses Word of the Tour coming to Yorkshire has gone abroad it seems, with two stories about the race appearing in Friday's Lancashire Telegraph. My favourite is the one titled "Fun for all the family" that is illustrated by a picture of an empty road. It suggests Skipton is the "place to be" as it is only seven miles from Earby, and points out that "a few hundred metres" of stage two is on historic Lancashire soil at Turvin Road, between Cragg Vale and Littleborough. And nation shall speak peace unto nation.
Full story: Lancashire Telegraph
Flower power Speaking of roses, Welcome to Yorkshire's Grand Depart-themed garden won a silver medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. That said, I am not sure there was anything as clichéd as a rose growing in the country/urban mash-up display. There were wild flowers from York, though, and a windswept hawthorn from Brimham Rocks.
Full story: The Press
Smoke and manoeuvres For those still not convinced that the Tour de France is a major event, this news will come as a blow. The world's premier aerobatics display team, the Red Arrows, have been booked to perform their traditional red, white and blue flypast as the riders start racing from Harewood House on 5 July.
Full story: Yorkshire Evening Post
Sign of the times Children from Addingham Primary School have been helping the Lord Mayor of Bradford put up 35 new brown tourist signs along the route of stages one and two, so amateur cyclists and Tour historians can follow in the pedal strokes of their heroes for years to come. OK, it was probably a team of contractors who actually put the signs up, but Councillor Khadim Hussain said: "I hope people using these signs, to either cycle or drive the route, stop off and visit our beautiful towns and villages."
Full story: Ilkley Gazette
CYCLING ROUND-UP
After nearly two weeks of skirmishes at the Giro d'Italia, Colombia's Rigoberto Uran has won the first major battle. And such was the extent of his victory in stage 12's individual time trial, he might even have won the war.
The Omega Pharma-Quick-Step team leader powered over the hilly 41.9km from Barbaresco to Barolo to win by a stunning margin of 87 seconds from Italy's Diego Ulissi. He now leads the race by 37 seconds, with nine days of racing to go.
Third on the day was Cadel Evans, the overnight leader who had been hoping to stretch that advantage with tough mountain stages to come in the final week. The Australian rode well, but not well enough on a day when Uran was simply in a different class to the rest of the field. Friday's stage should finish in a sprint, before the race returns to the mountains on Saturday.
Elsewhere, the protracted doping case involving 2012 Tour of Britain winner Jonathan Tiernan-Locke has been postponed until later this summer. The Team Sky rider has been suspended all season after anomalies became apparent in his biological passport, the individual blood profile that anti-doping authorities use to monitor athletes. The postponement, however, is a relatively simple case of a diary clash between barristers.
And while Leeds gears up for its Grand Depart, Brussels has thrown its beret into the ring to host the start of the Tour in 2019. That would mark the 50th anniversary of cycling legend Eddy Merckx's first stage victory.
TWEET OF THE DAY
"Nice ride by Mick Jagger today #forte"
Team Sky's double Olympic champion Geraint Thomas congratulates former colleague and Rolling Stones frontman lookalike Rigoberto Uran on his Giro success.
A TO Z OF LE TOUR
N is for…
Neutralised - If truth be told, N is for not much in terms of cycling lingo, so it is fitting that the only term I could think means the race is not really happening. Stages, or parts of stages, are usually neutralised for safety reasons. This could be the first few miles of a stage - in order to get the riders and race convoy safely out of a city before the real racing starts - or the last few miles of a stage if there has been a big crash or particularly bad weather. In the latter case, everybody is given the same time, regardless of when they cross the line. But you would still have a stage winner, as well points being on offer in that competition, so some riders will race to the line. This can lead to complaints from the sprinters, who feel they are being expected to take risks that the general classification competitors are not.
TODAY'S TOUR TRIVIA
Thursday's news that Yorkshireman Scott Thwaites has been included on his team's long list for the Tour got me thinking about how many British riders we could have on the starting line in Leeds. The record entry from this country is 11 in 1961, when the race was contested by national teams. The Tours in 1967 and 1968 were run on the same lines, with nine and then 10 British riders in the peloton. But the numbers dwindled over the next 40 years, with no Brits in the race in 2004 or 2005.
The advent of National Lottery funding, the opening of Manchester's velodrome, Olympic success, Team Sky and cycling's general return to fashion have all played parts in reversing that trend, and we could now see the biggest British contingent at Le Tour for half a century. If anybody wants to make a prediction on the total, tweet me @mattslaterbbc. I am going for 10.
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Beyond the continuing stories about asylum seekers and their desperation at Calais, the fact remains that vast majority of non-EU migrants, an expected half a million people this year, are not in this category. So how do those who come to work and live in the UK qualify? And how have they got in? | By Peter MarshallPresenter, The Report
Skilled workers
The greatest number of migrant visas, nearly 169,000 this year, are tied to people who come to Britain for work. Before they get their visas there has to be a job offer.
Beyond this, applications for leave to remain are decided on a points system based on factors including previous earnings, qualifications and age.
Josy Joseph, a skilled nurse from Kerala in south India, works in an intensive care unit at a hospital in Kent, after four years at nursing college, a two-year internship and a year working in Saudi Arabia.
Josy expects to be forced to leave in 2017. New regulations mean she'll be allowed leave to remain only if she's earning at least £35,000. For all her training and experience, a salary like that is out of her league. And her husband, who has an MBA and works in a fast-food restaurant, will have to go too.
Josy thinks they'll go to Australia where she says specialist nurses are welcome. She agrees with the head of NHS England, who says that new, tighter visa rules are squeezing out the likes of Josy and simultaneously increasing pressure on the NHS.
"Either they'll be under a permanent staff shortage or they'll have to hire agency staff to cover the positions. They are going to lose the nurses, they'll have to replace them, they'll have to train the new staff. And we are taking all the skills with us wherever we go."
Students
This year 280,000 non-EU citizens will enter the UK on study visas. By far the greatest number, around 80,000 of them, will be Chinese.
One of these is Cherry Yu Qiu, a 23-year-old from Shanghai who's just finished her Master's degree at Goldsmith's College.
She now has a maximum of four months to find a job and a visa and is looking to work in the media or PR.
But if she does go back to China she'd like an employer who'd send her back to Britain.
"We call it seagull. Like a half a year in Britain and half a year in China. Young graduates, if they go back to China, they are going to be turtles, they can only stay in the sea, they can never get used to the environment. Of course I'd rather be the seagull."
The super-rich
For wealthy people, the route to UK residency is straightforward.
Yulia Andresyuk, a lawyer with a London firm which helps the super-rich get residency in Britain, says the basic qualification for a Tier 1 investor visa "is [the] ability to show that you have £2m. Once you receive your visa you would have a certain amount of time, that's three months to invest it into the UK in a certain way. That means investing into government gilts or bonds, buying shares or giving it as a loan to a company operating in the UK.
"Initially your visa is given for three years, then it can be extended for another two. After the five years that you have lived here you can apply for your permanent residency."
But the amount invested, she explains, speeds up the process. "If you invest £5m you can apply for your permanent residency after three years. If you invest £10m, you can apply for permanent residency after two years.
"Those people are tax residents here, they have to pay taxes. They're setting up companies here for creating jobs. I think they are very beneficial to the UK."
There were nearly 1,200 visas issued to the super-rich last year, not exactly swarms but double the number in 2013.
Backpackers
More than 20,000 people living in the UK this year will have Youth Mobility Scheme visas, which are valid for two years. They need to be aged 18 to 30 and have £1,890 savings. They come from a mixed bag of countries including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and even Monaco.
One of them, Australian Nate James, became a waiter in London.
"I was working in a restaurant on the Thames and every day I would see something amazing go down the river. Every day something crazy would happen and I really loved seeing that."
In the evenings Nate took a short course in audio engineering. After his visa came to an end, he tried to get a study visa. But, as the private college he attended was not registered for foreign students, he did not qualify for one.
So, as 2014 dawned, Nate was on a plane back to Oz. But he wasn't giving up on his dream.
Descendants
For those with British ancestors, the door to the UK is still open.
A UK Ancestry visa, allowing someone to work in the UK for five years, is available to Commonwealth citizens with British (and in certain cases Irish) grandparents.
After five years, the visa holder can apply for an extension or to settle in the UK permanently.
Three weeks after being thrown out in January last year Nate, the Australian backpacker, discovered that his grandmother had been born in Sheffield and "immediately applied for ancestry to come back and finish what I'd started".
Just over 4,000 of these visas were issued last year.
Entrepreneurs
The UK also provides visas for those who want to set up or run a business in the UK.
Natalie Meyer, a 26-year-old Californian, was a postgraduate student at the LSE. But, with new rules allowing postgraduate foreign students just four months to look for work and an employer to act as sponsor, she decided to apply for an entrepreneur's visa.
The Home Office issues only around 1,200 of these annually, imposing tough conditions.
Natalie needed a big idea, a minimum of £200,000 to invest in it, and the long-term commitment to take on at least two employees. With a family based in Silicon Valley, she used their connections to set up a software business in Britain and organised a second enterprise, offering "cultural insights, professional introductions and market research for Japanese companies entering the UK and vice-versa".
Her visa runs out in March and she has applied for a two-year extension, but is feeling stressed.
"I've created jobs and if I'm not allowed to stay, those jobs that I've created will actually disappear. So it's actually beneficial to the UK for me to be here."
Family
It was an arranged marriage which brought Pragati Gupta to Swindon two years ago. She'd met her husband Aviral Mittal, a micro-electronics engineer, via an online matchmaking website. They're both from India but he's a British citizen and has been in the UK since 2000.
As Pragati puts it: "I was looking for a match and he meets my requirements." She says she always wanted to go abroad and after the wedding, back in India, a Family Visa, available to a spouse or child of a UK citizen, entitled her to enter the UK. There will be just over 35,000 family visas issued this year.
Pragati is delighted with the UK - she says life is more fun and exciting here. She's also pleased with her husband, saying he's humble, down to earth and family-minded and that "you make a match but then you start talking and the love develops".
The Report: How To Get Into The UK is in BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 BST on 15 October 2015 and available later via podcast.
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Russia's annexation of Crimea has led some to wonder whether any other former Soviet countries could follow. The separatist region of Trans-Dniester has already offered itself to Moscow - a request which Russia has promised to consider. | By Humphrey HawksleyBBC News, Tiraspol
"It's been getting much worse in the past few months," said a mother of two who didn't want to give her real name and called herself Anna.
"They have closed, let me see...." she counts on her fingers. "Eight blogging sites. The secret police are so active now."
We were having coffee in the centre of Tiraspol, capital of the tiny, unrecognised state of Trans-Dniester that lives in a time-warped other age.
Teams of workers tend street flowerbeds. A statue of Lenin stands in the main square and a red and green national flag with a small yellow hammer a sickle in the corner flies from the roof of an ugly parliament building - known as the Supreme Soviet.
"It's confusing," says Anna. "If I had a choice, I would choose Europe. But a lot of things are better here. There are more opportunities in Russia. Salaries are about the same, but our pensions are much higher - about $180 (£109) a month compared to $75 in Moldova." She smiles. "And our gas is much, much cheaper."
This week the Supreme Soviet sent an official request to Moscow asking if - given Crimea - Trans-Dniester could be allowed to join the Russian Federation. But there's been no celebration and barely an announcement.
Outside, one couple had not heard and when told, the man shrugged and walked on - wary, it seemed, of talking to a foreigner.
Across the wide October 25th Boulevard, a strong wind from the River Dniester scattered flowers laid at a memorial to those killed in recent wars.
Each name is listed on a black stone wall, including more than 800 killed in 1992 when Trans-Dniester, backed by Russia, fought to stop the tiny country of Moldova from becoming independent from a disintegrating Soviet Union.
It mostly failed. A ceasefire created this strip of land wedged between Ukraine and Moldova, that has become what's described as a "frozen conflict".
Trans-Dniester is home to about 300,000 people who live amid a drab and arid agricultural landscape, peppered with checkpoints run by Russian peacekeeping troops. The same soldiers also keep watch over immigration posts on the Moldovan border. More than a thousand are based here.
One of the few tourist attractions is a museum in the old headquarters of a swashbuckling Red Army General Grigory Kotovsky, who held sway over Tiraspol in the 1920s.
"He is magnificent like the Soviet Union," says the curator Nadejda Kostiurina, holding up a Soviet flag underneath his portrait. "That was much, much better than we have now."
She has been watching Russian television on the Crimea crisis and when asked about it says bluntly: "I hope the European Union has enough brains not to start a war. I don't understand why it wants to more bloodshed."
Compared with the ordered tranquillity of Tiraspol, where street lamps are polished and curb sides painted, the Moldovan capital of Chisinau carries the muddle of a new market democracy - pot holed roads, chaotic traffic, and luxury car showrooms blending together in Europe's poorest country.
Its beacon is membership of the European Union, but now, for many here, there's a new fear that Russia will try to stop that by moving on Trans-Dniester - and, therefore, Moldova.
"If Putin will continue in Ukraine, particularly along the Black Sea until Odessa with its connection to Trans-Dniester we could see a very sad scenario," says Oazu Nantoi a political veteran of the Soviet collapse. "If he can be stopped in Crimea, then we have a chance to survive."
In recent weeks, more Moldovans have been switching to Russian television channels because, according to analysts, it's what they trust in times of crisis. This is creating a new challenge by pitting the bullish Vladimir Putin against Moldova's urbane and cautious prime minister, Iurie Leanca.
"Putin is the most popular political leader in Moldova," remarks a newspaper vendor in central Chisinau, reflecting the view of the still powerful Moldovan communist party.
Mr Leanca accuses his opponents of using propaganda to poison the minds of voters, but he admits that such sentiment has added resolve and speed to his policies.
He wants to sign an EU Association Agreement - similar to the one that sparked the protests in Ukraine - as soon as practicable. He has set himself an optimistic target of 2019 to join the European Union. He also wants to consolidate Moldova's position as a Nato ally, despite its official policy of being militarily neutral.
Yet, as a graduate of one of Moscow's elite universities for diplomats, Mr Leanca believes he has a feel for how far he could go with a head-to-head confrontation against the power of Russia.
"My own experience is that you have to have a very good and intense dialogue with Russia and the more you discuss the more you will see progress," he says.
"If the Ukrainians think this is a good lesson we would be willing to share it because in our situations there is no alternative to dialogue."
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As the UK stared down the barrel of a coronavirus epidemic in early March, the biggest fear was that hospitals would be swamped and incapacitated by a tsunami of patients. It happened in Wuhan and northern Italy. The NHS largely pulled through, but there were still times hospitals became overwhelmed. One of those was when a London hospital became suddenly engulfed with victims. | By Thomas MackintoshBBC News, London
On 19 March, night-shift staff at Northwick Park Hospital in north-west London awoke to discover their workplace was so overwhelmed with Covid patients that a critical incident had been declared.
"I saw it on the news and thought 'oh my goodness'," said consultant Tariq Husain.
"I'd had messages from colleagues during the day saying it was getting really busy, we needed extra help, we've got such a volume of patients.
"It was that realisation that everything we feared was becoming reality.
"It was shocking and almost unbelievable that it was happening."
Watching and waiting
Six weeks earlier, at the end of January, Brexit was the only story in town. Coronavirus was still a mystery disease silently circulating in China.
Northwick Park, which specialises in tropical diseases, was soon asked by Public Health England to start screening people coming into the UK from Wuhan who were showing signs of coronavirus.
The hospital's location makes it easy to access from Heathrow Airport - similar protocols were used during the Ebola outbreak five years earlier.
By mid-February, the extent of the global spread of coronavirus was impossible to ignore. In Italy, the number of cases crept up slowly at first and then rapidly accelerated - a textbook epidemic curve.
Northwick Park staff were watching the news from abroad closely.
"I love Italy and go to Italy several times a year - I had actually cancelled a holiday that we had booked for the end of March," head of facilities Yvonne Smith said.
"So taking a particular interest in that and seeing the pictures of the intensive care units there was quite sobering, and you knew you were going to have to prepare yourself for something like that."
Yvonne, from Kent, looks after non-clinical roles within the hospital - security, cleaning, porters, patient transport and laundry workers all fall under her remit.
"It's been extremely challenging because it has been so new and you don't know what to expect. It was a challenge managing all those groups of staff I look after in terms of making them safe at work, but making them feel confident in the job roles that they had."
Battle plans were drawn up in case Northwick Park experienced a similar onslaught to the one in northern Italy.
A pod was placed outside the hospital and any patients showing symptoms of coronavirus were assessed there. A specialist from the infectious disease department would don full PPE and come to test them.
Inside the hospital, training exercises and preparations were just as rigorous. Some day-to-day tasks had to be scaled back.
"We mapped out a patient coming in as a live scenario and how we would have to adapt," A&E nurse consultant John Ross said. "Then we just trained and trained and trained for a good 10 or 12 days. So everything we did had to change because of the threat coming in with Covid."
John, from Inverness, explained that initial precautions against the virus were focused on identifying those patients who had travelled from China, Iran or Italy.
"For us, it was changing every single day. Which part of the world they were from and how much risk they had. I think Italy was when we really had to focus and get even more prepared - we kept saying in our training sessions that it was not likely to happen, but let's get prepared."
John knew that if a coronavirus wave was destined for the capital, the boroughs served by Northwick Park - Harrow, Brent and Ealing - would be likely to be hit hard.
"We saw what happened in Italy," John recalled. "We know there is a very dense population here, we know the demographics, we know a lot of our patients have cardiac and respiratory problems - a lot of diabetes - so it was always at the back of our minds.
"You hope that it isn't going to happen but you have to be prepared for it."
All of their intense training was about be put to the test.
'It hit us like a tonne of bricks'
On 3 March, "wash your hands" was the mantra at the Downing Street briefing - although Prime Minister Boris Johnson explained he had been continuing to shake people's hands. It was on this day the government published a detailed coronavirus action plan.
Ten miles from Downing Street, a patient turned up at Northwick Park who had just returned to London from Iran.
"We knew Covid was coming," said Dr Rachel Tennent, who specialises in respiratory medicine. "It had been in the news since January and we were preparing around February.
"Then it hit us like a tonne of bricks. It hit us hard and fast - the epicentre of the outbreak in the UK."
When a further two patients tested positive for coronavirus, the hospital triggered a set of rapid changes.
Surgeons were obliged to give up space so patients could be assessed safely and the A&E department was divided up.
"I remember meeting up here on Sunday 8 March - how we are going to keep staff and patients safe?" Rachel said. "We decided to create different pathways, negative going to one area of the department and people with respiratory problems who might be positive to the other.
"We had to move a lot of wards and staff around - stuff that would usually take six months to a year happened in a week."
The number of seriously ill patients being admitted to Northwick Park was increasing and, within days, staff found themselves dealing with a crisis.
"We had an exponential increase," Rachel said. "On Monday 9 March we opened our respiratory assessment area wards and within two days those wards were full.
"Then on the third day another ward was opened and then we started cohorting patients with respiratory problems in side rooms. By the end of that second week we were up to a full ward and then another one full."
Coronavirus was declared a global epidemic by the World Health Organisation on 11 March.
The virus was by now spreading across London, and Public Health England's modelling suggested cases were doubling in the capital every five days.
At Northwick Park, they were seeing the number of cases double every two days.
"It increased at a very, very rapid rate," Rachel explained, adding that new advice from China was that early intubation of patients was the way forward.
Risks are attached to every intubation as the procedure projects the virus into the air, further exposing staff.
At this point, 44-year-old consultant Tariq Hussain had a tough conversation with his family after he was asked to take a senior role in Northwick Park's critical care response to Covid-19.
"It wasn't an easy call to make. You end up sacrificing a lot of things," Tariq said, although he knew that taking on the role was the right thing to do.
The gravity of the situation was by this stage clear, with confirmed infections in Harrow, Brent and nearby Ealing jumping from five to 112 in a week.
"We saw all kinds of patients - patients who have been admitted to ICU have been relatively fit and well, with a few diabetes, high blood pressure cases, but otherwise reasonably well," Tariq said.
"But certainly not just elderly; we had people in their 20s, 30s and upwards from there.
"There have been relatively few Caucasians and a high proportion of Asian patients, which is the cohort of people around here.
"Everyone had read the newspapers and seen the news about the scale of the pandemic, particularly in China.
"We never thought we'd quite reach the point of such a huge volume of patients requiring admission to intensive care."
"Patients would initially go into side rooms," head of facilities Yvonne Smith said. "Every time a Covid patient vacated that room it would need a full clean.
"So our normal terminal cleans will average 20 or 25 a day. At our absolute peak that went up to 96 terminal cleans a day."
Tariq described the surge of patients at this stage as a "tidal wave". It was about to crash down, as Northwick Park ran out of space for the sick.
'We need help'
On 19 March, the prime minister said it would take 12 weeks to turn the tide against coronavirus.
At the same time an executive meeting was being held at Northwick Park, where a critical incident was declared.
"We had a lot of patients and more coming in than we could match the demand of what we could actually do," head of nursing Trish Mukherjee said.
As part of the critical incident protocol, patients were shuttled to other hospitals to alleviate the pressure.
"The whole point about the critical incident is for that help within the area," Dr Rachel Tennent said.
"You don't want people dying in a busy hospital when 30 miles up the road no-one has even got it, so the whole point is to share the access to ventilators."
Northwick Park became the first UK hospital during the pandemic to declare such an incident - only Watford General has taken the same action, although Weston General also saw its resources pushed to the very limit.
Medical director Dr Martin Kuper was one of those involved in the decision to declare an emergency at Northwick Park.
"I think it was right for us to do so," he said. "We had an awful lot of patients and we needed some help here."
Frontline heartache
To stem the flow of coronavirus cases, the UK was put into lockdown on 23 March.
Restaurants, pubs and tourist hotspots emptied, while hospital beds and morgues continued to fill.
At the peak of the crisis at Northwick Park, 126 patients in the hospital's NHS trust area died with coronavirus in one week - every one of them with no family present.
"Yes, the deaths were going up," head of nursing Trish Mukherjee said, "but the most difficult part was that relatives weren't there and we had to stay with the patients and hold their hand and be there for their last moments - I think that was difficult in itself."
Emma Leahy, a nurse from Limerick, has the task of using a tablet computer to connect patients with loved ones at home.
"We continue to care throughout all different parts of their stays in intensive care," she said.
"Seeing a patient who we have cared for a month to be able to wake up and say 'thank you for looking after me', and seeing their children say 'can't wait to see you, Dad' - this is why we do this job."
One of the people Emma has nursed is Jal Makai, a father of four from Northolt, who was taken to Northwick Park on 3 April after collapsing on the toilet.
In hospital, his condition worsened and within three days of being admitted he was hooked up to a ventilator. He spent a month on it.
His kidneys failed and he was unable to walk or hear out of one ear.
But Jal has survived.
"Without these guys at the NHS I'd be gone, very simple," he said. "At one point my wife thought that was it, I was gone."
He added: "When you do open your eyes there is someone here. Always - maybe even more than one. They are angels. They put themselves in harm's way - they should be getting paid more than footballers.
"If it wasn't for them I wouldn't see my kids again, very simple."
At about the same time Jal was admitted, NHS veteran of 35 years Chris Bown took over as CEO of the London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, which is responsible for Northwick Park.
"The striking thing for me is, having finished a job in the NHS as a CEO in mid-January, was that the NHS that I left in mid-January was not the NHS I returned to at the end of March," he said.
"It fundamentally had to shift and change to meet this devastating pandemic.
"I was really quite shocked to see the impact this was having but equally reassured that, despite the enormous pressures, the staff here in this trust were absolutely doing their utmost to manage very difficult circumstances with great compassion."
Every survival story during the pandemic has provided a much-needed morale boost for staff - and they have even had one of their own.
Nurse Alicia Borja spent a month in the hospital with coronavirus and was eventually applauded out of Northwick Park by the colleagues who helped save her.
Alicia is recovering at home but will be back to help care for others with the virus that almost killed her.
"We've had 900 discharges of Covid patients and that is amazing," Trish said. "It was lovely to see Alicia recover so well and to see her go home.
"I got to look after her, I got to speak with her, hold her hand and talk about normal things.
"Seeing her be applauded out was just an overwhelming joy."
Second wave fears
There is now relative calm at Northwick Park. Covid patients are still coming in but at nowhere near the volume experienced a few weeks ago.
On the coronavirus ward, Emma Leahy takes a break from chatting with patients and families to reflect.
"The last few weeks have been emotional," she said.
"It has been a rollercoaster and it's made me realise we take things for granted - and it's something I won't be doing any more."
"Our work is being recognised," Emma added. "I never really knew my neighbours, they didn't really know me."
"They didn't know I was a nurse and the last few weeks I've gotten to see my neighbours and we've clapped for carers every Thursday together and it has just brought this sense of community and the feeling that we are all in this together."
"North-west London is where the wave crashed in Covid and we were the hardest hit first," medical director Martin Kupar said.
"The reasons for that, our boroughs, Brent, Ealing and Harrow, have a high rate of Covid.
"We don't know why that is - it is certainly a diverse and multi-ethnic area and then there is a lot of travel as well. There are also socio-economic reasons."
He said that patient numbers did not double again at Northwick Park after the critical incident was declared. More than two months on, staff now fear a second wave.
"We were the place that was hit first but it would have carried on - the lockdown was essential. Nothing else can help you reduce the numbers," he said.
"It seems likely that there will be upstrokes of waves as the lockdown is eased... the rate of increase is likely to be slower than the first time round, which is when there were no restrictions on people.
"I don't think we've had a similar crisis in my lifetime in the NHS and I think the staff have been amazing."
Many staff are being encouraged to take time off.
"Of course we are on standby in case anything increases," CEO Chris Bown said. "But we are seeing that the numbers of admissions and deaths through Covid-19 have decreased substantially.
"Clearly, we are all learning a great deal from this and we always need to be prepared if there is going to be a second wave - which we really hope there isn't - but we are now making sure staff take as much annual leave and training as we are in a bit of a dip right now."
It's now almost three months since the first confirmed coronavirus patient was admitted to the hospital.
Even though the past few weeks have been traumatic, there is a sense of triumph in the unity, compassion and resilience shown by staff at Northwick Park.
Exhausted nurses, doctors, cleaners and porters are cautiously optimistic they have overcome the biggest challenge of their working lives - but remain wary of a return to the all-consuming fight against an invisible enemy.
All images subject to copyright
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A rare Chinese calligraphy scroll has fetched 308m yuan (£29m; $46m) - the second-highest amount paid for an artwork at auction in China, the state-run Xinhua news agency says. | The scroll on silk with four lines of characters is a copy of ancient Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi's work.
Officials at the China Guardian auction in Beijing did not reveal any details of the buyer.
In June, another calligraphy scroll was purchased for 437m yuan.
The copy of Wang's work measuring 24.5cm x 13.8cm (9.8in x 5.5in) was sold at auction on Saturday.
The scroll originally had nine lines of characters but was torn into parts, so buyers were bidding only for the first part with four lines, Xinhua said.
It is a copy of of a work by Wang Xizhi - a Jin dynasty figure who is known as the Sage of Calligraphy. However, none of his works are known to have survived.
Experts believe that the scroll sold at auction dates from the Tang dynasty between 618-907.
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Plans for a new £4m art gallery have been submitted. | The Paddock Project, in Sherborne, Dorset, would incorporate a a tourist information centre and restaurant into the building.
Sherborne Community Arts Centre Trust wants to build the venue on a site behind the town's Paddock Gardens.
It has sent a pre-planning application to West Dorset District Council. The trust said it would hold public consultations but has not given dates.
More on this and other stories from across the South of England
An anonymous benefactor has agreed to fund the project, which is also expected to include three gallery spaces, a coffee shop and a sensory or memory garden.
West Dorset MP Oliver Letwin described the project as an "incredible opportunity" for Sherborne.
"It will also provide a catalyst for change that will transform the local economy," he added.
The plans have also been backed by local schools The Gryphon, Sherborne School for Girls and Sherborne Preparatory School, as well as community arts organisation Sherborne ArtsLink which said the project would offer "a stimulating artistic environment".
The trust wants the main entrance to the venue to be created through Paddock Gardens, which is currently owned by the town council, and would involve removing one of its stone walls.
The trust estimates the gallery could attract between 50,000 and 80,000 visitors a year.
The town's current tourist information centre is based on Digby Road.
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Outrage amongst women in Spain over a court's decision to clear five men of the crime of rape after they performed and filmed non-consensual sex with a teenager has led to an extraordinary outpouring of personal stories of male abuse on social media. | By James BadcockMadrid
Using the hashtag #cuéntalo (tell it), tens of thousands of women have decided to show their solidarity with the victim in the "wolf pack" case, so called because of the name of the WhatsApp group her attackers used to comment on their sordid acts.
WARNING: You may find some of the accounts in this story disturbing.
Women have detailed instances in which they have suffered unwanted sexual attention or violent abuse from male family members, strangers or teachers and others in positions of authority.
The stories have trickled in to form a flood of anger about what women have had to endure, mostly in silence - until now.
"It was my father and it started before I can remember," wrote Elisa. "Two years old, three? Less? I have just turned 41 and a few months ago I went back into therapy because, even if I think I have, I haven't got over it. Chronic depression, anxiety attacks, nightmares… I never had a partner. Alone I feel safe."
"When I was 12 a stranger masturbated on me on the city bus taking me home. I didn't move. I felt shame, guilt, disgust. I didn't tell anyone until years later. I lived as if it hadn't happened but I didn't wear a skirt again for years. It's the first one I remember."
"I was 13 when my teacher started touching me without my consent and he did it for three months, I was living through a depression and tried suicide, I am telling this because I am not scared anymore."
Famous voices
When the five "wolf pack" men were handed nine-year jail sentences for sexual abuse but acquitted of full-blown rape last Thursday, hundreds of thousands of mainly women protesters thronged the streets of Spanish cities.
Spanish journalist Cristina Fallarás took her cue from the #MeToo movement, posting her own multiple experiences of abuse on Twitter and encouraging other women to #cuéntalo.
"I believe almost all of us have suffered some kind of sexual assault," she wrote.
Some well-known female personalities in Spain have joined their voices to the movement, like Leticia Dolera, an actress and author, who tweeted her experience of being 15 in a quiet street.
"15 years old. A quiet street. A young man throws himself at me from behind and gropes my bum. He whispers: you're lovely. I am speechless. He goes away. He comes back, doing the same but harder grabbing my hips and rubbing himself up against me. I scream. He goes away. Two people look at me. I feel shame."
Victoria Rosell, a judge and former member of Congress for the anti-austerity Podemos party, tweeted fragments of the 12 times she said she had faced abusive situations.
"Among the 12 occasions I remembered yesterday because of Cristina's #cuéntalo, I have an identical one to yours, at the age of 14. In the clubhouse toilet at a village party, opening the door to three men getting naked. 17. I am not telling about the times that I couldn't escape. It's painful to say: I am a judge and I never went to the police."
Ms Rosell has also criticised her colleagues' verdict in the "wolf pack" case.
Two of the three judges decided that actual intimidation had not taken place, even though they recognised that the 18-year-old victim had "frozen" once being surrounded inside a tiny alcove while her hair was pulled and body moved around by her attackers.
"The proven facts of the case are those of a rape," she told Cadena Ser radio after the verdict had been published.
Calls for reform
The Spanish government has promised to revise the framing of the country's rape laws, with opposition parties also supporting the need for reform.
Justice Minister Rafael Catalá took the unusual step of personally criticising the third judge in the case, who issued a minority verdict in favour of acquitting the five of any violent offence, claiming the sex had been consensual.
Mr Catalá said Judge Ricardo González was suffering from a "personal problem" and said it was the responsibility of Spain's judicial watchdog to ensure judges were "in full possession of their faculties".
Hours after the third straight night of protests against the verdict had taken place in Pamplona, a 34-year-old woman suffered a fatal beating in the city of Burgos, leading to the arrest of her 36-year-old former boyfriend.
Some of the #cuéntalo messages focused on what feminist campaigners in Spain have described as a "femicide", after almost 1,000 women have been killed by partners or ex-partners since the government began keeping records of gender violence cases in 2003.
Blogger Alejandra Tuk tweeted about the shocking story of a woman killed in Granada in 1997. Her name was Ana Orantes.
"My husband abuses me. I ask for a divorce. The sentence obliges me to live on the second floor of my attacker's house. I tell my story on TV. He gets annoyed because I report it, he comes round, ties me to a chair and burns me alive. I am telling you because Ana Orantes cannot."
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Police are investigating four deaths at an Edinburgh nursing home. | Police Scotland was first called to Pentland Hill following the death of a 67-year-old woman in July.
The force said it was now investigating four deaths at the Bupa-run home, which has been ordered to carry out a series of improvements by the regulator.
The Care Inspectorate is also dealing with four new complaints from families of residents, which are not related to the police inquiry.
Pentland Hill was severely criticised by the inspectorate earlier this year.
Inspectors found serious issues with the quality of care elderly residents were receiving, and with management.
Alex Hunter, whose mother Beatrice is a resident at the home, said the treatment received by his 88-year-old mother was "shocking".
Mr Hunter said: "To leave an old lady, who is frail in her bed, to allow her to be dehydrated to the extent she is now on a drip, is a scandal.
"I wrote a letter of complaint when I found she had a grade four bed sore and they replied 'It is not acceptable for Mrs Hunter to have developed the pressure ulcer, as it is clear all preventative measures were not put in place'.
"It is just shocking and I'm thinking of taking it up with my solicitor because I feel there's been total negligence here and I'm totally unhappy about this.
"The hospital was appalled by the state of my mother as she also has a urine infection and they were saying 'why can someone get dehydrated to that level when they are in a nursing home, it's just appalling'."
The home has been closed to new admissions until it carries out the improvements recommended by the watchdog, and a series of deadlines have been imposed.
Some of these have already passed, including a requirement to improve the administration of medicines and the monitoring of nutritional and fluid intake of residents.
'Urgent changes'
A Police Scotland spokesman said it and the Health and Safety Executive were carrying out "a joint initial investigation in relation to four deaths".
He said: "In addition, the Care Inspectorate is also investigating four complaints that are not related to the Police Scotland/HSE enquiries."
A Care Inspectorate spokesman said: "Every person is entitled to high-quality care which reflects their needs and promotes their rights.
"We are continuing to support this care home to make the urgent changes we set out in our improvement notice.
"We are now assessing the extent to which these requirements have been met.
"At all times, the health, safety and well-being of the residents is our top priority, and we continue to work closely with other agencies."
Diet and fluids
Vivienne Birch, Bupa Care Services' director of partnerships, said: "We believe we are on track to deliver the improvements we agreed with the Care Inspectorate but we appreciate we are not yet at the level we want to reach.
"We have invested significant resources in improving the home. For example, we have recruited extra staff to focus on assisting residents with diet and fluids and monitoring their intake.
"We have also improved our medication management systems and brought in extra dementia care experts.
"We always report any issues, however rare, to the police and relevant authorities and, as in these cases, we actively support their investigations.
"On 3 September the home manager, social worker and Mr Hunter met to review Mrs Hunter's condition.
"It was agreed that our care plan was working as her pressure sore had virtually healed and the GP had referred Mrs Hunter for further tests to explain her weight loss.
"Until Sunday morning Mrs Hunter's condition was stable; her pressure sore was healing and carers had been closely monitoring her fluid intake. On Sunday morning she refused all food and drink and would not allow staff to assist her.
"At the 13:00 check the nurse was concerned that Mrs Hunter's blood pressure had dropped, called 999 for an ambulance and alerted Mr Hunter."
Reports
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) has confirmed that it is studying reports relating to deaths at the home of three women and a 75-year-old man.
A Crown Office spokesman said: "We can confirm that reports in relation to the deaths of three women and one man, aged 94, 67, 93 and 75 in Edinburgh on 4 and 15 July and 17 and 5 September 2013 respectively, have been submitted to COPFS.
"A investigation by Police Scotland and the Health and Safety Executive into the circumstances of the deaths is ongoing under the direction of the Health and Safety Division of COPFS."
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"About 12 months ago, I tried to take my own life." | By Natalie GriceBBC News
The blunt words from a young mother whose two small children play nearby are hard to reconcile with the smiling, friendly, welcoming woman saying them.
She has joined a group of mothers who have banded together to help each other in an area of Wales criticised for poor mental health service provision.
Bethany Casey did not leave her home for six months after her 16-month-old son was born, could not speak to people, felt utterly alone at her home in rural Powys, near the Wales-England border.
Now the 24-year-old former nursery worker from Norton, near Knighton, feels her life has been turned around by a mental health programme which targets women just like her.
Mums Matter, run by Mind Cymru, offers help to women who suffer mental health problems after becoming mothers.
The six-week programme, running in Powys until March 2019, looks at preconceptions of motherhood versus the realities, self-confidence, nurturing oneself and taking control of one's own recovery, among other things.
But the course was only the beginning. After the first one finished, two participants set up a Mums Matter peer support group to enable the first graduates to meet and continue the recovery the course had helped them begin.
The most recent meeting at a community hall in the tiny village of Dolau, near Llandrindod Wells, marks Bethany's first attendance after finishing the Mind Cymru course.
With her she has her three-year-old son, who has a number of health issues including partial sight, hearing loss and developmental delay, and her younger son.
Bethany has suffered from "all sorts of mental health issues" in the past, including depression. Speaking about her suicide attempt, she said: "I just didn't feel like I had anybody.
"The thing about having children is how isolating I find it.
"This group [has] encouraged me, they have given me the confidence to stand up for myself, and I can talk, because for a long time I didn't want to talk. I barricaded myself in my own house for about six months after my second child was born.
"If you are having a really rough day, and you don't feel like playing with your children, these mums will reassure you that it's ok to feel like that.
"It's given me confidence to talk to new people and it's been really nice to find other people who don't look at you or your child like you're bonkers."
Loneliness in motherhood is a repeated theme among the participants, exacerbated possibly by the rural area they live in. A report into maternity-related mental health in Wales noted that Powys was the only one of seven health boards across Wales which did not have a dedicated perinatal mental health service.
The Maternal Mental Health Alliance published a map of services across Wales, marking Powys as red because of a lack of specialist maternal mental health services.
Women at the support group must have completed the Mums Matter course and had a child, to do the course, as parts of it look at birth trauma and the organisers do not want to cause distress to first-time pregnant women.
Organisations offering such things as financial advice or health services also come to speak to the women.
The course is run by Mind Cymru's Tracy Lewis, who said: "We're only just starting to get better with the stigma. Mums are frightened to say anything sometimes because they think 'they're going to take my baby away'.
"It's getting mums to understand how common it is to struggle.
"People tell me they've lost themselves. It's reminding mums that they can take time for themselves."
She provides assistance to the support group and attends some meetings but is clear that it functions because of the women themselves.
Stacey Powell, 28, from Abbeycwmhir near Llandrindod Wells, coped well after her first child Nerys but things were very different following the birth of 18-month-old Ffion.
"Ffion was five weeks old and the health visitor noticed I was struggling with my second," she said.
"I had a history of depression and anxiety as a teenager. My health visitor referred me to Tracy and I had my first meeting with her that day."
The group "made a huge difference" to her, helping her gain techniques to manage anxiety and "irrational fears about going out on my own".
When the course finished, she and fellow graduate Nikki Jones, 31, from Builth Wells, felt they needed to continue the good work the course had begun.
"Nikki said to me, why don't we create a peer support group, because the whole point of Mums Matter is we take the tools to recover, but we're not cured in six weeks," said Stacey.
"It was just the six of us from the first group in the beginning, and it's grown as more groups [from subsequent courses] have come along. It's spread across the county."
Although the group might look like a regular playgroup to a casual observer, the difference was striking. Members are able to talk honestly about the "taboo", as she puts it, of the negative side of becoming a parent.
No-one bats an eyelid if a group member needs a cry during the meeting and there is none of the sense of presenting a particular face to the world that she feels can be the case in regular playgroups she has attended in the past.
"We wanted to create a group where the outside didn't need to be said. We have already been through the course, where you tell the truth about motherhood.
"We have all had that day where we're struggling. It's a safe space where we all come together. I'm definitely a lot stronger as a person."
As a result of her experiences, Stacey recovered from her post-natal depression and become a volunteer with Mums Matter.
A second peer support group "to combat loneliness" is now in the pipeline further north for Knighton and the area.
Stacey said: "The first time I did a group I felt like a fraud, She [Tracy] said 'you had to remember you have been in that place'. I could see the pain in the other ladies and I came through, so I can say 'you will come through it'.
"Coming here to this programme has enabled me to get from a place where I wasn't enjoying my children to 'I'm not perfect a lot of the time but I'm trying my best', and that's fine.
"I'm a stay-at-home mum, so if I'm not enjoying them, it's a bit of a black hole to be in. I was barely surviving and now I'm thriving."
Information and advice
If you or someone you know is struggling with issues raised by this story, find support through BBC Action Line .
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Xinjiang cotton is some of the best fabric in the world. It's also, human rights campaigners say, produced by forced labour. Some Western brands have removed it from their supply chains, leading to a backlash from Chinese celebrities and netizens. Welcome to the row over cotton from the Xinjiang region of China. | By Alix KroegerBBC News
What are the concerns about Xinjiang cotton?
Rights groups say Xinjiang's Uighur minority (also spelled as "Uyghur") are being persecuted and conscripted for forced labour.
Evidence shown to the BBC suggests that upwards of half a million Uighur minority workers a year are being marshalled into seasonal cotton picking under conditions that appear to raise a high risk of coercion.
"Right now, there is near certainty that any brand sourcing apparel, textiles, yarn or cotton from the Uyghur Region is profiting from human rights violations, including forced labour, both in the Uyghur Region and more broadly throughout China," says the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region, whose members include Anti-Slavery International and the World Uyghur Congress.
Who uses it?
It can be difficult to pin down, since much of it gets absorbed into global supply chains. But if you bear in mind that Xinjiang cotton accounts for 85% of Chinese production and 20% of world supply, the chances are high that you've got some in your wardrobe.
There are two ways of looking at it: top down, and bottom up.
Retailers typically only know the first tier in their supply chain. For example, a retailer commissions a shirt from a supplier, who buys the fabric from a mill, which buys the yarn from a spinning mill, which bought the cotton from a broker, who bought cotton from any number of farms.
Tracing cotton back to a specific farm is almost impossible - there are just too many.
Think of the supply chain like a sand-timer: there are hundreds of thousands of farms and almost as many garment factories. The spinning mills in the middle are the pinch point, where the cotton is blended and turned into yarn.
Certification schemes for cotton mills, such as Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced (Yess), work to eliminate forced labour from the supply chain.
But that's of limited help to you as a consumer if you're just ordering a pair of jeans off a retailer's website.
"If you really want to be confident of the traceability of the cotton in your jeans, you have to look for Soil Association organic cotton or Fairtrade," advises Clare Lissaman from Common Objective (CO), a sustainable fashion sourcing platform.
What does China say?
China rejects the accusations of using forced labour and denies holding Uighurs in detention camps. It says the camps are "re-education" facilities being used to combat terrorism.
Many Chinese have called for boycotts of Western brands including Nike and H&M after they expressed concern about the alleged use of Uighur forced labour.
H&M has been erased from Chinese e-commerce sites including Pinduoduo, JD.com and Tmall.
Burberry lost a brand ambassador, actress Zhou Dongyu - and it wasn't the only one. In 48 hours, 27 celebrities cut ties with companies including Adidas, Calvin Klein and Nike.
Where is Xinjiang and who are the Uighurs?
Read more: Who are the Uighurs?
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A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder after a father was found shot dead in a car. | Gurinderjit Rai's body was discovered in a car parked in a lay-by in Shepherds Farm Lane, Corhampton, Hampshire, on 13 July.
Police believe the 41-year-old, from Eastleigh, was killed in a targeted attack.
The suspect, from Winchester, is the 13th person to be arrested as part of the inquiry, police said.
All of those arrested are still on police bail or under investigation, and none are in custody, detectives added.
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An actress who starred in the Queen of Katwe, a Disney film about a chess prodigy from a Ugandan slum, has died aged 15, Ugandan media report. | Nikita Pearl Waligwa had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
The 2016 film was based on the true story of Phiona Mutesi, who took up chess aged nine despite not being in school and went on to compete in international tournaments.
It starred Lupita Nyong'o as her mother and David Oyelowo as her chess teacher.
Waligwa played the role of Gloria, a friend of Phiona who explained the rules of chess to her.
She was first diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2016 and Queen of Katwe director Mira Nair reportedly mobilised people to help fund her treatment in India, with Ugandan doctors quoted as saying they did not have the necessary equipment.
She was given the all-clear in 2017 but last year was found to have another tumour.
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Aberdeen's main Christmas lights display along the city's Union Street has been switched on. | Hundreds of people traditionally attend the annual event, which saw traffic restrictions in place.
This year's pantomime-themed event got under way at about 1700 GMT with street entertainment.
Lord Provost Peter Stephen said: "The parade is great fun for all. When the Christmas lights are switched on the city centre looks wonderfully festive."
Related Internet Links
Aberdeen City Council
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Earlier this year, eight people were jailed for their part in the biggest slavery network ever discovered in Britain. BBC Panorama went behind the scenes as police and lawyers worked tirelessly with dozens of victims to expose the gang. | By Duncan StaffBBC Panorama
"I understand you've been talking to one of my witnesses." The detective on the other end of the line, Michelle Ohren, does not sound happy. "I did not know he was one of your witnesses," I reply: "Anyway. Witness to what?"
There is a sigh at the other end of the line. "Mariusz Rykaczewski is a witness in a modern slavery case we have been investigating for the past two years." Det Sgt Ohren's words seize my attention. With the help of the Salvation Army I have been interviewing former slaves for a possible Panorama on modern slavery.
"Look, I'm happy to help," I say, probing, "can you tell me more?" The answer is a firm "no". But Det Sgt Ohren does agree to put me in touch with her boss, Det Ch Insp Nick Dale of West Midlands Police.
The door to the UK's biggest ever modern-day slavery case has cracked open.
I'd met Mariusz at a Salvation Army base in a northern city.
He'd been hiding out in one of the charity's network of safe houses. He told me he'd been a solider in the French Foreign Legion. He looked the part with a battered face and a buzz cut. The story he came out with was at turns highly unlikely and grim.
He was down on his luck in northern Poland when a couple of "Gypsies" made him an offer he couldn't refuse: free travel to the UK, free accommodation and a job. He knew there had to be a catch. "I think at first it's a joke but the day after they call me: 'When am I ready to go?'"
Desperate, he decided to take a gamble. "I take one bag. I meet in this bus station and they give me ticket and I go."
The life that awaited him in the UK was very different to the idyll he had been promised.
'They beat me'
He was housed in a freezing terrace with 12 other men. They were all the same: older guys in their 40s and 50s, many of them alcoholic or homeless, all down on their luck. All were now slaves in a foreign country.
Mariusz slept on the floor and the food he was given was stale. What's more, he was told he'd have to repay the cost of the bus ticket, the out-of-date food and the squalid accommodation.
He tried to escape - and discovered the price of disobedience. "The criminals... they beat me in my ribs and I have black eyes. "Sometimes I sleep with big knife because I'm afraid they come back again."
Isobel McFarlane of the Salvation Army, who introduced me to Mariusz, says his background in the French Foreign Legion may have made things worse for him. "What happened to Mariusz is extremely typical where one individual might be singled out and actually physically assaulted as an example to the other guys."
Mariusz's captors took him along to a local bank to open an account. He was forced to give a fake address under the slavers' control. He never saw the card or withdrew any money from the account.
Only after he'd escaped did he learn the account had been used to run up more than £6,000 in debt. The most he was ever paid for a 60-hour week picking leeks was £75. That's £1.25 an hour.
Eventually, Mariusz found a number for the Salvation Army slavery helpline.
A woman there told him where the nearest police station was and - crucially - that he'd be looked after when he got there. Within hours of escaping he was on his way to a Salvation Army safe house far from Birmingham and his captors. "They were very kind to me," said Mariusz.
As we parted he told me proudly that he was now training to be a security guard. It seemed as though his life was getting back on track.
Not long after this I find myself in Det Ch Insp Dale's sparse office at Bournville police station in Birmingham. The force currently has multiple unsolved murders. And yet sitting opposite me is an officer firmly fixed on modern-day slavery.
"Mariusz is one of dozens of witnesses," says Det Ch Insp Dale. "I think, in total, there were 300 victims. There's never been a case like it."
I ask the detective if our company, Longtail Films, can follow him and his officers for Panorama. I expect to have to persuade him, have my arguments ready. A life of police work does not make people trusting. His reply surprises me.
"Yes. I believe in being open. The public need to understand the scale of the problem. We can't police it out of existence. I'll introduce you to the team." His team turns out to be a few officers. Just two of them, Det Con Mike Wright and Det Sgt Ohren, working on the operation from start to finish.
"The case has taken over our lives," says Det Con Wright, a slim young detective with impeccably gelled hair. Det Sgt Ohren nods.
'A family business'
They take me through the case. At first, it is almost impossible to grasp the size of it. There are hundreds of potential victims and so many defendants that the case has been split into two trials at Birmingham Crown Court.
The barrister leading the case is Caroline Haughey QC. I meet her at King's Cross station to discuss taking part in the film. Like Det Ch Insp Dale, she sees it as an opportunity.
She simplifies the case for me in the same way as she does for the jury. "This is a family business. Amongst the people involved are fathers, sons, cousins, aunts, uncles, mothers. They share a vision on how they can exploit this commodity.
"The commodity happens to be human beings."
There are five defendants in the first trial: the gang's matriarch, Justyna Parczewska, who met slaves when they first arrived, Marek Brzezinski, who organised housing for the captives, Marek Chowaniec, who got them into the country, his close friend Julianna Chodakiewicz, who arranged work for them, and Natalia Zmuda, who stole their wages.
As I film them entering and leaving court they in turn hide their faces, abuse and threaten me.
Ms Haughey shows them no sympathy. "This case is taking down a very large organised crime group and gouging out its heart."
After the witnesses have given evidence I interview the few willing to waive their lifelong right to anonymity. It's a deeply moving experience. Each time I ask the men a simple list of questions about what happened. Each time a slavery victim breaks down on camera. And yet they are all determined to tell their story.
I ask Piotr Pawski, who was threatened with death by his captors, if he'll ever be free of what happened to him. "I hope so," he replies. "I took part in this programme because I hope there won't be any more cases like mine… I would love to put an end to this and just end the human trafficking."
The pressure on the prosecution team is grinding. They work long hours in a tiny, windowless meeting room. The temperature is stifling. The only change of scene they get is a trip to the courtroom itself. One after another, police and barristers fall ill.
"It's just unrelenting," Ms Haughey tells me over yet another hastily grabbed sandwich. She is pale and has cold sores. "I'm doing 100 hour weeks and my kids hardly see me."
The camera I have chosen for the job is deliberately small and unobtrusive - even so I am very grateful for the police and barristers' patience when I turn it on them during moments of maximum pressure.
As Mariusz is about to give evidence a problem emerges: he is wanted by the Polish authorities on a European arrest warrant. It turns out he was on the run when he fell into the clutches of the slavers. "What would our position be… if I disclose this now?" asks junior barrister Emma Shafton.
"I don't really see the problem," replies Ms Haughey. "Our position has always been - and one of the complainants even said - he was specifically targeting people who came out of prison, people who are homeless."
I watch Mariusz on the stand. He is a star witness, winning over the jury with his honesty about his past, his humility and his frankness about the horror he lived through.
Afterwards Ms Haughey goes down to thank him, as she does every witness in the case. "Well done in telling your story. Getting that part of your life back because now you own it. You really did well, so thank you."
The jury foreman delivers the verdict like a bowler knocking over a row of skittles. The slavers are guilty on every single count. After passing sentences ranging from three to 11 years, Judge Mary Stacey gives Det Sgt Ohren and Det Con Wright an official crown court judge's commendation - some return on four years of their life.
In a later trial three other slavers, including the gang's patriarch, Ignacy Brzezinkski, are sentenced to a total of 20 years.
The convictions please all of the slaves I meet. This does not mean that they can put the experience behind them. "They got big sentences which is great," says Adam Scczepankiewicz. "But I know they [are] seeking revenge. And for the rest of my life I'll be looking back - and worried they will find me and they will kill me."
Things do not end well for Mariusz.
A few weeks after giving evidence his past catches up with him. He is arrested and flown back to Poland to serve a year for robbery.
At least he has the comfort of knowing that his former captors will be inside for far longer.
Panorama, The Hunt for Britain's Slave Gangs - Thursday 5 September at 21:00 on BBC One or catch up on the iPlayer.
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Council tax in Gwynedd will rise by 4.5% after the council approved its budget for 2015/16. | The council said the increase was needed to fill a £60m funding gap in the £228m it needs to deliver local services.
It hopes to generate £58m from the tax increase, which equates to an extra 96p a week for an average band D household.
A further £2m will come from council balances, while £168m will be funded through a government grant.
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A man has been crushed to death by a large log while cutting down timber in Cumbria. | Fire crews and the ambulance service were called to Newton Reigny, near Penrith on Saturday afternoon after he became trapped under the five-metre (16ft 4in) log.
The man, who was in his 50s, was confirmed dead at the scene by a paramedic.
Cumbria Police said the incident was not being treated as suspicious.
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Toronto's tough-talking mayor has never hidden his disdain for cyclists. Now they are accusing him of trumping up a war on two-wheeled commuters. Bike lanes have been removed but are the city's streets any more dangerous to ride? | By Jason MargolisPRI's The World
Rob Ford cruised to victory as city mayor a year-and-a-half ago pledging to end what he dubbed "the war on the car". He argued that bike lanes were taking away space for cars.
"And what I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten," said Ford speaking in 2010 as a Toronto city council-member.
"And every year we have dozens of people that get hit by cars or trucks. Well, no wonder: roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes.
"My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."
Since Ford came into office, Toronto hasn't just stopped putting in bike lanes; it has started removing some of them.
Last year, the Toronto city council voted to remove three bike lanes. The city council did, however, also
agree to upgrade
a couple of existing bike lanes to physically separated traffic lanes, which are safer for cyclists. A few more lanes could be added after a further study is conducted.
Ford's office didn't respond to repeated interview requests. But cyclists on the streets of Toronto were happy to share their thoughts on the mayor.
"To have the war against bikes, or in his case, what he believed is the war against cars, is insane and ludicrous as far as I'm concerned," said cyclist Sean Siford.
Christine Montgomery added: "He's completely awful."
John Barber is also no fan of the mayor and his car-friendly policies.
He writes a
column
for the Globe and Mail newspaper about life in Toronto. He's also been cycling in the city for 50 years.
"There's this weird culture war," said Barber.
"You know in one of the newspapers, they're calling bicyclists 'helmet heads.' You're in part of some kind of tribe, and they impute all kinds of motives to you.
"And it's this war between people who... somebody is trying to trump a war between bicyclists and cars. It never existed in the past."
Fifteen years ago, Bicycling Magazine named Toronto North America's best city for cycling. Now, Toronto is the bike
collision capital of Canada
, with more accidents per capita than any other major Canadian city.
Yet many Toronto motorists are up in arms when there's talk of narrowing roads to add bike lanes, said Barber.
"Nobody says, 'Well, hey we're killing people at twice the rate of Vancouver. Shouldn't we try to think of making these streets a little bit safer?'"
Many motorists feel that cyclists are the ones making the streets unsafe, and there's been plenty of
online discussion
on this topic.
Some say reckless bikers pose a threat to pedestrians and other cyclists. Others complain about an "idiot on a bike" who veered in and out of traffic, ignoring the rules of the road.
Barber would like to see police enforce those rules for cyclists.
But he says in the end, bikes need their own space, and the city needs more bike lanes. He calls the mayor's stance "completely crazy."
"People want bicycles lanes everywhere in North America," said Barber. "There's a demand among the constituents for bicycle infrastructure. And nothing could be cheaper; it's a matter of painting lines, right?"
Painting some lines on the road may be cheap. But there's another cost.
"If you put in a bike lane, you have to take something out: it's either a traffic lane, or parking," explained Nancy Smith Lea, director of the Toronto Center for Active Transportation. "And for the most part, when the parking is removed, that's the most contentious issue."
One big problem bikers face, almost everywhere, is what cyclists in Toronto call "the door prize" - when somebody getting out of their car hits you with their door.
Smith Lea advocates getting rid of some on-street parking to create a few bike corridors. She says many people don't react so well to this.
"People go bananas. But I think it's what needs to happen."
Here's the counter argument: adding bike lanes will help some cyclists, but will have a negative effect on many more drivers.
Cycling safety became front page news in Toronto last fall when a young mother, who was also five months pregnant, was
killed on her bike
. She was crushed under the wheels of a truck. In a separate incident, an enraged driver chased a cyclist onto a sidewalk in his car.
Add it all up, and it may sound like Toronto's streets have turned into some kind of a roller derby.
Not so, says Ron Buliung, a professor of transportation geography at the University of Toronto and a bike commuter. He went back and looked at police reports over the past decade.
"And we're not seeing dramatic increases in fatalities or injuries of any kind, or much change in the frequency of injury on our major arterials," said Buliung.
He says what's happening is that other North American cities are becoming much safer for cyclists, much faster.
Meanwhile, progress in Toronto has stalled. Toronto has been averaging more than 1,100 reported
cycling collisions
over the past five years.
Add one more to this year's tally.
"I've not had a collision with a motor vehicle, except for today actually, the day I'm coming to speak to you about cycling in Toronto," said Buliung.
Builing was sideswiped by a car. He was not injured.
Listen to Jason Margolis' full report atPRI's The World
,
a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH in Boston.
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A man has been charged with killing a man found with head injuries in the street. | David Turner, 50, was attacked near the University Bridge on Brayford Way in Lincoln on the night of 16 May. He died in hospital three days later.
Adnan Mehmed, 38, of Park Street in Lincoln, has been charged with manslaughter and is due to appear at Lincoln Magistrates' Court in October.
He has been released on bail, Lincolnshire Police said.
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There are about 1,700 tigers left in the wild in India. In the past five weeks, 17 people in four states have been killed by tigers. Jay Mazoomdaar investigates the reasons behind the current spate of killings. | In a country which is home to the world's largest population of tigers, few things swing public opinion more sharply than a "man-eater" does.
With 17 people killed by tigers in the past five weeks in the four Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, angry residents of affected areas are threatening to take the law into their own hands.
But then, to those who do not know it, nothing can describe the terror of living in the shadow of a "man-eating" tiger on the prowl.
In Tamil Nadu's Nilgiri district, schools in the Dodabetta region have been shut for over a week now. The majority of the householders here are people on daily wages who have not gone to work. If the "tiger curfew" continues much longer, the poorer families may start to starve.
Drawing a blank
The tiger that killed three people since 4 January in Dodabetta has been confirmed as a "man-eater". But the jury is still out on whether a "man-eater" killed two people in Maharashtra's Tadoba region. In Uttar Pradesh, a wandering tigress from Jim Corbett National Park has killed seven people since Christmas. Another five people have been killed by a tiger in Karnataka.
While two "man-eating" tigers - and one which killed livestock - have been captured in Karnataka since last month, forest authorities in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have so far drawn a blank.
Trap cages and camera traps are in place. Trackers on foot and veterinarians with tranquiliser guns on elephants are scouring the forest patches. Even recorded mating calls are being blared to lure the "man-eater" out. But with little luck so far.
It is never easy when a tiger loses its fear of people.
In fact, most attacks on people are chance encounters gone wrong. Victims of such accidental attacks are rarely dragged away as prey or actually eaten.
But a series of attacks on people in quick succession is a telltale sign of a man-eater at work.
Fortunately, a tiger turning to human prey is rare.
A tiger usually makes one large kill every week. For India's 1,700-odd tigers, that adds up to more than 85,000 kills in a year.
If humans were part of a tiger's natural diet, and since there are people everywhere in India, a good number of these 85,000 kills would be humans.
The truth is, less than 85 people are killed or injured - accidentally or otherwise - in a year by tigers here. Many times more die of snakebites or rabies.
Yet, the tiger remains the most feared killing machine in public perception.
People rarely discriminate between accidental and deliberate killings. And every time there is an attack, the media jump the gun.
Under the law, the heads of the state wildlife departments can declare a tiger a man-eater and permit its killing.
'Risky delay'
But a spate of shooting licences issued to private hunters prompted the union environment ministry to issue a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in January last year.
According to the SOP, "under no circumstances, a tiger should be eliminated by invoking the Wildlife [Protection] Act, 1972, if it is not habituated for causing human death".
But when a tiger stalks and kills people, the only option is to eliminate it.
India's strong animal welfare lobby, however, insists on capturing "man-eaters" alive, rather than shooting them down.
It takes a lot more effort and time to trap or tranquilise a "man-eater" than to gun it down.
And every delay is fraught with the danger of more human casualties and the subsequent revenge killing of random tigers by hostile villagers.
"Once confirmed, a 'man-eater' has to be dealt with promptly. Any delay is risky and this angers local people. This may undermine public support for conservation of tigers as a species," argues tiger biologist Dr Ullas Karanth.
Conservationist Valmik Thapar insists that independent experts must be engaged to determine if a tiger is a "man-eater".
"If it is established that a tiger is too dangerous to be rehabilitated in the wild, it should be put down rather than made to serve a life term in a zoo," he says.
Not surprisingly, most "man-eaters" in recent times have been reported from areas with high tiger populations, such as the Bandipur-Nagarahole, Tadoba, Corbett-Rajaji, Ranthambhore and Kaziranga regions.
Densely packed tiger forests - many call them the price of India's conservation success - often lead to young and old tigers wandering outside. Such wandering tigers are more likely to come into conflict with people.
'Too many tigers'
"Tigers that come into conflict with people are more likely sub-adults [a tiger that has passed through the juvenile period but not yet attained typical adult characteristics] trying to find new territories, and among old, injured animals that are evicted from their home territories," Dr Karanth explains.
The man-eater captured in Karnataka on 5 December was a 12-year-old male. It had nearly completed the full lifespan expected in the wild.
The one trapped on 2 January was an eight-year-old male with injuries to its right paw and shoulder.
Since such weak animals would not have lasted too long in the wild anyway, it makes no difference to conservation if they are killed or sent to zoos, say wildlife experts.
But prompt action sends the right message to local communities.
Experts believe that the public outcry over the present spate of human killings should neither provoke officials to hastily declare the tigers as "man-eaters" nor come in the way of promptly gunning down an identified "man-eater".
"Any confirmed 'man-eater' should be eliminated, though not a tiger that accidentally kills someone in self-defence. Zoos already have far too many tigers," says Dr George Schaller, the world's foremost field biologist.
Meanwhile, life is on hold in India's terrified villages reeling from tiger attacks. The search for the "man-eaters" continues.
Jay Mazoomdaar is an independent journalist who writes for publications in India and abroad.
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A £1m lottery winner from Ceredigion has been urged to collect their prize following a recent draw. | The ticket was bought in the local authority area and the numbers came up in the EuroMillions Millionaire Maker draw on 7 February.
If the prize is unclaimed on 5 August it will go towards projects across the UK, the National Lottery has said.
The ticket code was VPDP 74836. Claims for a lost ticket can still be made in writing within 30 days of the draw.
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Businesses can't vote. No matter how big or powerful, they are not allowed into the polling booth. They do, however, have a voice which, by and large, has been singing a tune called Remain. | Simon JackBusiness editor
When it comes to the referendum it's clear that size does matter. There are some exceptions (JCB chairman Sir Anthony Bamford and Sir James Dyson) but the rule of thumb is this: the bigger the business, the more likely it is to be in favour of staying in the EU. Ford, BMW, JP Morgan, Easyjet, Microsoft, HP, Rolls-Royce, Virgin and many more have written to their staff over the last few weeks to lay out the risks of an exit.
The polling bears out this difference between big and small. A poll among CBI members, who tend to be larger employers, showed 77% favouring Remain with just 6% favouring Leave. The last available poll from the Federation of Small Business showed a much more even split with 47% preferring to stay in and 41% wanting out.
Single market
The reason for this marked difference could be the relative importance big and small business place on membership of the single market. For companies like Ford, which exports bits of cars to Europe, gets them back again, adds a few more bits and then exports them again, friction-free trade with a bloc of 500 million customers is crucial.
That kind of access, or something close, may be achievable post Brexit - but that's far from certain. I am loath to trot out the dreaded cliché that businesses don't like uncertainty - but if it fits, sometimes you have to wear it.
For small businesses, the single market matters less, as very few of them export to Europe and they may be able to ditch some of the red tape that comes with being part of a 28-nation bureaucracy. Those that do export would have to follow EU rules anyway without any input into the rule making process.
Skills
Another priority for businesses is finding staff. According to government figures there are currently 2.1 million EU nationals working here in the UK and yet the unemployment rate is just 5% - very near what most economists would consider full employment.
The Polish builder, for example, has become a fixture in the national psyche - could we do without him?
According to the Construction Industry Training Board the UK has a severe skills shortage in the building trade.
Some contractors say higher wages in the sector would tempt more UK nationals into the trade and that's how a labour market should work rather than relying on a limitless supply of cheap labour.
Many have characterised this referendum as a tussle between the economy and immigration. You may damage the economy by leaving but it's the only surefire way of bringing immigration under control. This is not a dilemma that worries most big businesses as they benefit both ways from remain - more customers and more workers to choose from.
The weight of business opinion is firmly with Remain but as I said, businesses can't vote. We'll find out on Friday morning whether workers share business owners' enthusiasm for the free movement of goods, services, capital and, most divisively, people.
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New figures published on Thursday offer a chilling insight into the violence and abuse that goes on behind closed doors. According to the data, two million people in England and Wales suffered sexual assault, violence, threats or abuse at the hands of a partner or family member last year. | Mark EastonHome editor@BBCMarkEastonon Twitter
Despite a much greater focus on domestic crime by police, it is a number that has barely changed in four years.
The data comes from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) which regularly asks people about their personal experience of crime. Breaking the numbers down reveals that 1.2 million victims were women and 800,000 were men, a far higher proportion of male sufferers than people might have thought. Domestic abuse is not just a women's issue.
The survey suggests, though, that it is an issue of the poor, the sick and the separated.
The pain of relationship breakdown is vivid in these figures. Among couples who had separated, 21% of women and 11% of men were victims of domestic abuse. For those in a marriage, the figure is 3% for both sexes.
Women who are unemployed are more than twice as likely to have experienced domestic violence or abuse in the last year than those with a job, 15% compared with 6%. For men it is 7% against 5%.
There is a clear correlation between lower incomes and higher risks of being a victim of domestic abuse. For men and women with incomes of less than £10,000 a year, the proportion affected last year was 9% and 12% respectively. Among those earning £50,000 or more, the risk falls to 4%.
Those with a long-standing illness or disability are also in greater danger - 13% of women in that category and 7% of men suffered domestic abuse last year compared with a general likelihood of 7% and 5% respectively.
These are often repeat crimes. A fifth of victims say they were affected at least three times, almost a third said they had suffered domestic abuse at least twice.
This data echoes the finding from a new Freedom of Information request that shows up to a third of domestic incidents recorded by the police are classified as repeat incidents. The FoI request was published on Thursday by the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who says the scale of domestic violence is "disturbingly high".
"Some police forces and local councils do a great job working together and some are piloting early intervention schemes to identify and help those most at risk, but everyone could do more," Ms Cooper argues. "We need a new national board to set standards and drive change."
The same FoI request also shows that one in 10 of all 999 calls to the police relate to incidents of domestic violence. In some force areas, it is as high as one in five.
This might actually be a positive development. Victims are less reluctant to contact the police and more likely to trust them to deal with their cases sensitively and seriously.
Evidence for that comes in the official figures on rape. While the crime survey suggests little significant change in the incidence of rape over the last few years, the number of rapes reported to the police has risen from about 6,600 in 1997 to 16,000 in 2011/12.
Nevertheless, with the survey data suggesting violent crime has halved since 1995, the prevalence and intractability of domestic abuse is a cause for concern. The government says it regards the issue as a priority, and from next month the definition of domestic violence will be widened to include those aged 16-17 who are subject to psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional abuse.
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With the 101st Tour de France starting in Leeds on 5 July, BBC Yorkshire's Matt Slater rounds up the Grand Depart gossip, opinion and stories, as well as trying to shed some light on the race's mysterious ways.
TOP STORIES | Fan's guide With thousands of cycling fans expected in the Holme Valley to see stage two of the Tour de France this summer, a local cycling fan has posted a guide to the customs and quirks of Yorkshire folk on YouTube. Alistaire Macgregor's video suggests visitors swap bike helmets for flat caps, and trainers for clogs, while warning that brightly coloured jerseys could scare the sheep.
Full story: The Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Band on the run "Stirring" North Yorkshire-based folk-rock band Area 40 has recorded a song to celebrate the Tour's visit to the region. A video to accompany the song "Road Trip" sees the "duelling electric guitar/violin band" take to their bikes to enjoy the Grand Depart route. Duelling? Let's hope there's no road rage.
Full story: Harrogate Advertiser
Landscape artists Worth Valley's young farmers have been busy, and not just with lambing. "Fields of Vision" is the name of a grand project to mark July's Grand Depart. Part of the 100-day cultural festival in the build-up to the Tour, some of the hillsides around Haworth, Oxenhope and Stanbury will be transformed into giant pieces of land art. Using string, pegs, ribbon and liquid fertiliser, the farmers have teamed up with local artists to create a series of stunning images in the grass.
Full story: The Telegraph & Argus
CYCLING ROUND-UP
Whatever you do in Belfast this weekend, do not call its "Big Start" a dress rehearsal for Yorkshire's "Grand Depart". The Giro d'Italia, the first Grand Tour of the 2014 season, rolls off a ramp in Belfast's Titanic Quarter this evening for the first of three thrilling days in Northern Ireland and Ireland, before jetting to southern Italy and 18 more days of racing. The opening ceremony took place at City Hall on Thursday night and it would be fair to say the good folk of Northern Ireland have entered into the spirit of things by turning the place pink.
Elsewhere, the Women's Tour of Britain heads into Essex for its third stage. Italy's Rossella Ratto won a wet second stage in Bedford on Thursday.
And whilst most cycling aficionados will tell you the Giro is the only race that matters on the men's calendar this month, there is a growing body of opinion that the Tour of California is coming up hard on the rails. OK, it lacks the Giro's history and Grand Tour status, but it has a great field this year, including British stars Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish. Wiggo, in fact, has said California was "an obvious choice over the Giro, to be honest", a statement that will not win him any friends in Italy.
TWEET OF THE DAY
"If you can't beat them, join them."
BBC Northern Ireland's Mark Simpson gets into the Giro d'Italia spirit by turning his Twitter profile picture pink.
A TO Z OF LE TOUR
D is for…
Diable Rouge - Dieter "Didi" Senft is German cycling fan in his 60s who has become a fixture at Le Tour over the last 20 years thanks to his appearances at the roadside dressed in a skin-tight, red devil suit. He accessories this outfit with a large golden trident, and usually paints tridents on the road to warn the TV commentators of his imminent arrival.
Domestique - Literally "servant", this term describes about two thirds of the field in a bike race. These are the guys on every team who shield their star rider from the wind, fetch food and clothing from the team cars, pace them back to the bunch if they crash or get a puncture, and even hand over their bikes to the leader if need be. The glory for a domestique comes when their rider wins, and all bonuses are shared.
Dossard - This is the number the riders pin to their jerseys, but the word means something slightly grander in the Tour context. It is the rider's attachment to the race, a symbol of his continuing involvement in it.
FACT OF THE DAY
The Tour de France was launched in 1903 when the editor of an ailing newspaper, L'Auto, called a staff meeting to come up with ideas to boost the title's sales. The editor of the paper was Henri Desgrange, a former cyclist and velodrome owner, and the last to pipe up was a young reporter called Geo Lefevre. His idea was to take the popular format of a six-day bike race on the track to the highways and byways of France. Desgrange loved it and took it to his boss, who handed over the keys to the company safe, saying "take whatever you need": Le Tour was born, and L'Auto was saved.
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Members of the public have been asked to hand in illegal firearms and weapons as part of a month-long amnesty in the Isle of Man. | More than 150 items including swords, grenades, a pistol, ammunition and shotguns were surrendered during the last amnesty in 2005.
A police spokesman said everything from "knuckle-dusters to knives can be surrendered".
Secured weapons can be brought to one of four designated police stations.
They are in Douglas, Ramsey, Castletown and Peel.
The scheme has been authorised by the Attorney General and no-one handing in items will be prosecuted during the amnesty, which runs until 30 November.
Police have advised anybody who is unsure about how to check any weapon's condition to contact them.
Several rifles have already been handed in.
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Thousands of publicans are struggling to make a living, with the smoking ban, high beer tax and "unfair" prices charged by pub companies being blamed. The government has promised to act, but will it do enough?
| By Justin ParkinsonPolitical reporter, BBC News
For millions of people it is "the dream".
Running a pub - what could be better? Chatting to customers, being a leading figure in the community, being bought the odd drink, having fun: it certainly beats the nine-to-five, and the money's not bad, either.
That is the idealised vision of the licensed trade. For many thousands of publicans, the reality is very different.
Pubs, some of them hundreds of years old, are closing at the rate of 18 a week across the UK, according to the Campaign for Real Ale.
The smoking ban and rises in VAT and beer duty have hit profits, not to mention recent recessions and cut-price booze deals in supermarkets.
Many of those running pubs are locked into exclusivity deals, under which they are known as "tied houses". This means they can only sell beer, wine and spirits supplied by the companies owning the premises.
'Getting worse'
Often the wholesale prices are so high they squeeze any chance of making a decent living, it is argued.
Alan Leach is one of the growing ranks of the disillusioned.
He has run the London Unity, in the trendy Hanover district of Brighton, for two years. Given the hilly surroundings, its residents should be thirstier than most.
But Mr Leach, who used to work as a manager for a medium-sized Brighton pub firm, has struggled since taking over his own premises.
He has attempted to diversify to encourage more custom, serving curries and Sunday roasts, but has found it hard.
His lease ends soon and he is not renewing it. The pub, which dates back to the mid-19th Century, has been put up for sale by Enterprise Inns, which owns the building's freehold.
Mr Leach told the BBC News website: "It's becoming really difficult for publicans. The companies are charging too much for the beer, hitting our profit margins.
"Also, the rise in VAT and the smoking ban are putting the squeeze on us. Things are only getting worse and something has to be done about it.
"Otherwise, independent pubs like ours are going to keep closing, and communities will suffer."
The London Unity is being advertised as premises which would "suit alternative uses subject to planning", one of which could be as flats.
A Twitter campaign has been established to prevent this happening, led by Rhian Jones, a restaurateur who wants to take over the pub and keep it as a licensed premises.
She said: "It's a nice-sized pub and it's in a nice area, with an established customer base. People agree with me that it would be a pity if the London Unity closed.
"Every day I drive past signs saying pubs have closed down and there's permission to turn them into housing. It's so sad. I want to run the Unity as a good old-fashioned pub."
But Enterprise Inns denies it is pushing for the London Unity to become housing in an effort to make a quick buck.
'Scam'
A spokesman said: "As part of our ongoing business, we do from time to time identify a pub which is unable to deliver an appropriate level of sustainable income.
"After careful consideration and a review of all options, the decision has been made to offer the freehold for sale on the open market with no restrictions on future use."
Pubs have changed enormously over the past couple of decades. Most offer food. Some are far swisher. Opening hours are longer.
But the biggest change came after the Conservative government of the late 1980s became concerned that large breweries owned too many pubs.
The Monopolies and Mergers Commission found they were creating a "complex monopoly", damaging the interests of publicans and customers.
The resulting "Beer Orders" stipulated that no brewery was allowed to have more than 2,000 tied houses by November 1992.
So thousands of pubs were sold, many of them bought by companies which became known as "pubcos", which, as they did not manufacture drinks themselves, were exempt from the terms of the Beer Orders.
They quickly proliferated and the largest today are Enterprise and Punch Taverns, owning more than 8,000 pubs and bars each.
Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland, who chairs the All-Party Save the Pub Group, has accused pubcos of overcharging for beer and rent to help pay off their large debts.
He said: "The anti-monopolies move went wrong. The pubcos are now as big as the breweries ever were. Politicians on all sides recognise that something needs to be done. A lot of what is going on is nothing more than a scam.
"These firms are in debt and the quickest way to get rid of it is to sell off the premises. That means a load of pubs will end up as housing or supermarkets, ripping the heart out of many communities.
"It's heartbreaking. People are just trying to make a decent living and do their bit to keep places alive."
'Irresponsibly low prices'
Amid accusations that pubcos are exploiting tenants, the current government has promised to introduce a statutory code of practice to govern the relationship between them and landlords, overseen by an independent regulator.
The details of this arrangement still have to be thrashed out.
But Enterprise Inns said the tied house model was working for thousands of publicans, offering a "low cost of entry", as buying a lease was far cheaper than having to purchase the building outright.
Chief executive Ted Tuppen argues that politicians are to blame for much of the malaise, particularly the beer duty escalator, which automatically rises at 2% above the rate of inflation.
He said: "The past five years have clearly been difficult for publicans, with the smoking ban and irresponsibly low prices from supermarkets.
"In addition, the impact of the duty escalator has greatly contributed to the demise of many smaller, wet-led [beer, rather than food-oriented] pubs. During the past three years, whilst our average profit per pub has declined 12% to £67,000 per annum, the Treasury has increased its tax take by 19% to £145,000 per pub."
Action on tied houses is being promised, but it is too late for some. For others, a more fundamental rethink of taxation is just as important.
Behind the bar at the London Unity, Alan Leach is preparing to pack it all in in a few weeks' time. "It's such a pity, but I've got to make a living," he said.
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Ceredigion council has sold its social services building in Aberaeron for £550,000 as the authority looks to make savings. | Minaeron has been bought by Hywel Dda University Health Board which will use it as a care centre for the town.
The council opted to dispose of the building to help deal with budget cuts.
The health board said the building would help with its plans to make "significant improvements" to local service provision.
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It is a dilemma familiar to parents across Wales and it is dividing newsreader Lucy Owen and her Welsh-speaking husband Rhodri like never before.
Should they send their son Gabriel to a Welsh or English-medium secondary school?
As part of BBC Wales's How Wales Works season, Lucy explores the issues with families, teachers, experts and rugby international Jamie Roberts. | Lucy went to English language primary and secondary schools growing up and says: "Nobody I knew spoke Welsh, it just wasn't on the radar for me at all."
Seven-year-old Gabriel is currently at a Welsh-medium primary school, but she is concerned if he goes on to Welsh secondary education she will not be able to give him as much support with homework and will feel isolated in her own family.
For her husband Rhodri, the opposite is true: "I always went to Welsh school... He's my boy. He's Welsh, I'm Welsh, my grandparents are Welsh. We all speak Welsh and that's what we've done."
Lucy starts her journey sitting in on a lesson at the Welsh secondary school Ysgol Gyfun Rhydywaun, near Hirwaun.
At this school 97% of pupils have parents who do not speak Welsh, so they have developed an bilingual app so mothers and fathers can help with homework.
She meets the mother of a pupil who tells her the school is "immersive with parents" so she does not feel like an outsider.
But another mother she meets has switched her daughter from a Welsh primary to an English-language secondary school and says she feels better equipped to support her child.
Another couple tell Lucy they do not want their daughter learning Welsh as they believe modern languages will be more useful.
Andrew Williams, head teacher at English-medium Radyr Comprehensive, tells Lucy: "I think there's a fear among some parents that if they're in a Welsh medium school their English will suffer.
"I see a lot more at A Level because sometimes, I think, there's a parental perception that going on to university it's all delivered through the medium of English, so they prepare them by doing their A Levels through the medium of English."
It is a concern of Lucy's that going to a Welsh-medium secondary school will make university harder for Gabriel.
She goes to Queens' College, Cambridge where Wales rugby international Jamie Roberts is studying medical science to ask if being schooled in Welsh has hindered him.
He says: "Ultimately, in science, the concepts are the same regardless of the language... It was just a case of learning a whole host of words because there's quite a bit of carry over from A Level into your first couple of years in medicine.
"My parents took the view... that life shouldn't be easy, why worry about making it difficult? We should be more excited about making it challenging and rewarding and picturing the end product.
"I would definitely have my time again in Welsh secondary education and one day when I have children, touch wood, I would send them to Welsh schools."
Lucy has struggled learning Welsh herself and asks Prof Guillaume Thierry, a cognitive neuroscientist at Bangor University, if it is possible to be equally strong in two languages or if Gabriel's English will suffer.
He says: "There have been some studies looking at the level of achievement of bilinguals in two languages and it is true there is a tendency for the vocabulary, for the mastery of grammar, to suffer a small delay in development.
"This being said, there's this myth... we keep thinking that we can only store so much information and once the bucket is full that's it. It's exactly the opposite. The human brain has almost limitless space."
Prof Thierry adds that by translating his homework from Welsh into English for Lucy, Gabriel would become a "mini teacher as a child and that's the best way to learn".
He said: "We are in a global world. Today, bilingualism is the norm. Tomorrow, multilingualism is the norm."
Welsh or English? Lucy Owen's Big School Dilemma will be shown on BBC One Wales at 20:30 GMT on 25 January.
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A teenage girl who has been missing for more than a week has been found "safe and well" in Scotland, police said.
| Courtney Booth, 15, was reported missing at about 23:00 BST on 22 September after failing to return home to her family in Stainforth, Doncaster.
She had been in the Harrogate area before boarding a train to Edinburgh at York train station.
South Yorkshire Police said she was found in the Scottish capital.
A force spokesperson thanked the public and Police Scotland for their support during the search.
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When this picture of Ed Miliband's battle with a bacon butty hit the news, the Labour team pulled a few faces of their own. So why is the party's leader talking about how he looks? | By Ross HawkinsPolitical correspondent, BBC News
I am not from central casting
Other people look less like the animated character Wallace, he said in a speech. The comparison has long kept cartoonists in business.
Getting the joke
But Mr Miliband does a good line in self-deprecation in private, and he has decided to share some of that in public. You can find people who are more square-jawed, he said. More chiselled. No one argued.
So no more photo ops?
It's hardly the end of Labour's once legendary image-management though. Mr Miliband admitted pictures still matter. After all, he was as keen as any other politician to get his photo taken with President Obama.
Tough job
And Labour's not pretending image doesn't matter. Mr Miliband has his own PR people. Earlier this year Labour advertised for another one - a Head of the Leader's Broadcasting according to the job ad. The vacancy's still not been filled.
But he says there's a real problem at Westminster: what he calls "photo op politics", where politicians are more worried about their image than important issues.
Substance not style?
The message from Labour is that David Cameron is better at smiling for the camera; Mr Miliband is a man of substance.
Nonsense says the prime minister - pointing out that this speech came on the day the economy recovered to the level it was at before the banking crash. It was extraordinary, he said, for Mr Miliband to talk about his image.
Will it work?
Labour's leader is not the first politician to look odd in a photo. Sometimes it's accidental. Sometimes they plan it that way. Take William Hague, then Conservative leader, on his water slide, in his branded baseball cap.
The question for Labour: can Mr Miliband's speech about his appearance make voters pay more attention to his ideas?
"If you want a politician who thinks that a good photo is the most important thing, then don't vote for me," he said.
That's not a risk-free strategy.
Any MP, photogenic or not, takes a gamble when he or she admits a weakness.
Mr Miliband's conceded he's got a problem. His critics will remind him of it again and again between now and polling day.
They'll certainly quote this speech back at him when he next poses for a photo.
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Burundi goes to the polls on 17 May to vote in a constitutional referendum, which could extend President Pierre Nkurunziza's rule to 2034. Here's why the vote has become a contentious issue: | Who is President Nkurunziza?
He is a former rebel leader who came to power at the end of Burundi's ethnically-charged civil war in 2005.
His run for a controversial third term in 2015 set off a wave of violence and an attempted coup, which was foiled by government forces. The political crisis led to hundreds of deaths, and more than 400,000 people fled the country, according to the United Nations (UN).
Critics at the time called his move unconstitutional. But supporters of Mr Nkurunziza, a born-again Christian and father of five, who has his own football team, said he was justified in running for a third term.
They argued that he had technically only done one term as he was first elected into power in 2005 by parliament - not voters. It is a view that was later upheld by Burundi's Constitutional Court, although there were reports that the judges had been intimidated.
The president portrays himself as a man of the people, and this has brought him widespread support in the rural areas, says Robert Misigaro from the BBC Great Lakes service. This is a demographic that his opponents have failed to harness, our correspondent adds.
Mr Nkurunziza was re-elected in July 2015 in a poll boycotted by the opposition. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating the abuses and violence, following a 2017 UN report detailing killings, torture and rape, allegedly committed largely by pro-government forces in that period.
Read more about Pierre Nkurunziza
What is the referendum about?
Burundians will vote Yes or No on whether to extend presidential terms from five years to a seven-year mandate.
There is currently a two-term limit in place for presidents. The changes could also allow Mr Nkurunziza to contest the 2020 elections, and potentially enjoy another two terms, as under a new constitution, he would start from scratch.
Other changes include a new post for a prime minister, the scrapping of the second vice-president post, and a clause that could see ethnic quotas - of 60% for Hutus and 40% for Tutsis - in the Senate and National Assembly, evaluated and potentially ended in five-years' time.
Ethnic quotas enabled the Tutsi minority, which used to dominate the country, to enjoy a veto since laws are adopted through a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
Mr Nkurunziza used to head a Hutu rebel group which battled the Tutsi-dominated army.
Why are tensions running high?
The government has been accused by rights groups of launching a campaign of repression, violence and fear to ensure the vote goes in President Nkurunziza's favour ahead of the vote.
Observers fear that it could kick off a political crisis similar to the one seen in 2015.
The government strongly denies allegations of repression and says the claims are propaganda disseminated by exiles.
In a rare punishment of a government supporter, a ruling party official who called for the drowning of opponents has been jailed. The ruling CNDD-FDD party said on Twitter in April that it rejected the "subversive message which may jeopardize unity and cohesion among the Burundian people".
Still, more than 50 members of the opposition coalition Amizero y'Abarundi were arrested over a single week last month, according to SOS Medias Burundi, a network of independent journalists.
Human rights activist Germain Rukuki was sentenced to 32 years in prison in April on charges that Amnesty International said had been "trumped up".
"The abuse reflects the widespread impunity for local authorities, the police and members of the ruling party's youth league, the Imbonerakure," Human Rights Watch wrote in April of allegations that ruling party officials had killed, beaten and detained perceived opponents.
The US has denounced the violence and called the government "to respect Burundi's international legal obligations regarding the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association", the US State Department said in a statement. "Such efforts by incumbents to enact constitutional changes to remain in power beyond term limits weaken democratic institutions," it said.
Days before the vote, on 12 May, more than 25 people were killed after an armed attack on a village in north-west Burundi. BBC correspondents say the attack might have been an attempt to disrupt the referendum.
On 4 May, Burundi's government said the BBC and VOA broadcasts would be suspended for six months, accusing the BBC of failing to challenge an exiled Burundian activist interviewed on its French service.
The BBC has accepted that the programme did not meet its strict editorial guidelines and has asked the government to lift the suspension.
Who are the referendum's supporters and detractors?
The ruling CNDD-FDD party, which Mr Nkurunziza leads, and a coalition of supporting parties, are backing a Yes vote.
Opposition leader Agaton Rwasa, who leads the coalition Amizero y'Abarundi, has been campaigning for a No vote.
Anyone who calls for the vote to be boycotted risks up to three years in jail.
The Catholic church has also come out against Mr Nkurunziza. In early May, 10 prominent Bishops signed a statement saying it was not the "appropriate time to make profound changes" to the constitution.
Burundi's exiled opposition groups, have made an alliance called CNARED, and called for a boycott of the referendum, AFP reports.
It calls the vote a "death knell" to the 2000 Arusha Peace accords, which helped end the country's civil war and stipulates that no leader can run the country for more than 10 years.
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The Channel Islands are not part of the EU and only a small percentage of residents are able to vote in the referendum on whether the UK should remain a member. But that doesn't necessarily mean the outcome of the vote will have no impact on the islands. | By Ryan Morrison & Elisabeth MahyBBC News
"Nearer to France but closer to home" is how the Channel Islands once sold themselves to holidaymakers.
The most southerly part of the British Isles, the islands are self-governing Crown Dependencies, not members of the EU and not part of the UK.
Only island residents who have lived in the UK within the past 15 years are eligible to vote on 23 June.
Officially the Jersey and Guernsey governments have remained neutral.
But some have campaigned in the islands - and in the Isle of Man - for the Crown Dependencies to be given a vote in the EU referendum.
A petition launched by a group of islanders to get the vote was dismissed by the Queen in May.
Tony Webber, a former member of the States of Guernsey who was one of the petitioners, said: "We are being denied a chance to vote on our future. This is a great mistake by the UK government."
Who can vote in the referendum in the Channel Islands?
Nobody in the Channel Islands has a special right to vote in the EU referendum. The only islanders who can vote are those who have been on the electoral roll in the UK within the past 15 years. This is because any expats who have moved from the UK to any other part of the world in the past 15 years are allowed to vote - so Channel Islanders who fit into this category are no different to any other former residents of the UK.
Anyone who moved from the mainland to the islands within the past 15 years but was too young to vote when they lived in the UK could register to vote if their parent or guardian was registered to vote in the UK.
There are no polling stations in the Channel Islands for the EU referendum - votes can only be cast by post, by proxy, or by visiting the UK on the day of the referendum.
David Walwyn, Jersey's Director of External Relations, hopes the outcome of the referendum will not have too much of an impact on trade between his island and the rest of Europe - whatever the result.
According to Mr Walwyn, protocol three - the section of the UK Treaty of Accession relating to the islands - allows the islands to have free trade of goods with the EU without being a member of the union.
He said: "We should continue to have free trade of goods and continue to be a third party regardless of the outcome of the referendum.
"Our position is that we are not seeking any change in the relationship Jersey has with the UK or European Union."
Fisherman in Jersey and Guernsey have their own separate arrangements with the UK and European Union.
Guernsey fisherman, Dougal Lane said: "An awful lot of fishermen think it would be good to get control of British waters. The French have access to British waters but we don't have access to theirs.
"But we might lose our markets… Would protocol three be suspended?"
For Jersey's Don Thompson the issue is of more concern as, unlike Guernsey, Jersey has signed up to a fisheries management agreement with the UK, giving crews access to EU waters.
He said: "That fisheries management agreement binds us to all EU regulation.
"This is the unfairness for Jersey. We don't have access to EU funds but we have to accept all the regulation that comes from the EU."
Meanwhile the body that represents Guernsey's finance industry abroad has said the island "offers stability for international business", particularly Asian markets, "during a period of uncertainty".
Speaking in March, Guernsey Finance chief executive Dominic Wheatley said: "Guernsey's position with respect to the EU is very clear - we're a 'third country' now and we'd still be a 'third country' in the event of a 'Brexit'."
Mr Walwyn disagrees, at least initially. He said the impact on finance would be negative on the island economy.
He said: "If the UK decided it was going to exit the EU it would be negative initially for Jersey because Jersey is so influenced by the finance industry.
"The exit for the UK would have a negative impact on the finance industry in London and that would be accelerated for Jersey as the island is more reliant on finance than the UK is."
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Legal action has been taken to evict a group of travellers who have moved on to one of the sites used by the Anglesey Show. | They arrived on the Mona Industrial Estate site on Thursday, hours before organisers of next week's show were due to prepare it for use as a park-and-ride area.
Anglesey council said the possession order means the site must be vacated.
The annual two-day show, which attracts 60,000 visitors, starts on Tuesday.
A council spokesperson said: "At Caernarfon County Court this morning, we were successful in obtaining a possession order and a warrant to evict travellers occupying land at Mona Industrial Estate."
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The "Blue Whale challenge" was reported to be an online "suicide game" aimed at teenagers which set 50 tasks over 50 days. The challenge was alleged to be linked to numerous deaths around the world. But little about the "game" was quite as it seemed. | By Ant AdeaneBBC Trending
The first tasks were fairly innocuous: "Wake up in the middle of the night" or "Watch a scary film". But day by day, the tasks grew more sinister.
"Stand on the ledge of a tower block."
"Cut a whale into your arm."
The final challenge? A demand that the user kill themselves.
The challenge was alleged to have started in Russia, but reports of it soon spread to other countries: Ukraine, India and the United States.
Hundreds of deaths were reported to be linked to the so-called "suicide game".
But closer investigation has revealed something curious. The game, at least as it was initially reported, doesn't seem to have existed at all.
Origin story
The story of the Blue Whale challenge began with Rina Palenkova.
On 22 November 2015, Rina, a teenager living in south-eastern Russia, posted a selfie.
In the photo she is standing outside. A black scarf is wrapped around her mouth and nose. She is sticking her middle finger up at the camera. It looks like it's covered in dried blood.
The photo's caption read: "Nya bye". The next day, she took her own life.
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Rina Palenkova's death was discussed in a certain type of chat room hosted by Russia's largest social network VKontakte. These forums were places where teenagers met to talk about everyday things like school and which classmates they fancied, as well as darker subject matter: depression, loneliness and suicide.
Scary stories were exchanged. The spookiness of these stories came from how real they seemed, something often achieved through fake pictures or doctored footage.
It is the online equivalent of the claim made by classic horror films that they are "based on true events". Because at the heart of any good ghost story is a sliver of plausibility.
It was in these groups, where the line between fact and fiction was often blurred, that users posted feverishly about Rina. In some instances, they lauded her for ending her life. Videos purporting to be her final moments were posted online.
But amid the rumours, there was a problem.
"Nobody actually knew the true story behind her suicide," says Daria Radchenko, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration who has looked into the so-called Blue Whale challenge.
And shortly thereafter, Rina's story merged with other stories of teenage suicide.
On Christmas Day 2015, 12-year-old Angelina Davydova killed herself in the Russian city of Ryazan. A little over a fortnight later, so did Diana Kuznetsova, a teenager from the same city.
When the parents examined the online accounts left behind by their daughters, they found something curious - the two girls were part of similar online groups.
In these groups were drawings of Rina Palenkova, posts about suicide and numerous mentions of blue whales.
Why blue whales?
There has been much speculation about how whales became linked to suicide in these groups. Some journalists claim it is because whales have been known to beach themselves, a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists. Others say that it is a reference to lyrics from a Russian rock band named Lumen.
It's difficult, of course, to say why certain images particularly resonate. Whales are solitary-seeming, sad-looking animals. They make for good memes. One of the most widely shared images was of a whale flying over a city at night. It captured the spirit of these groups - melancholy and quietly surreal.
But it wasn't until May 2016 that speculation about blue whales and suicide became part of the national conversation in Russia.
An article by journalist Galina Mursalieva in Novaya Gazeta, an investigative newspaper, sent the story into overdrive.
Mursalieva suggested that inside certain online groups, some of them with enigmatic names like "Ocean Whales" and "f57", existed a game.
In this game, so-called "curators" would set players 50 tasks over 50 days. On the last day the user was instructed to take their own life.
The Novaya Gazeta report estimated that 130 children might have killed themselves between November 2015 and April 2016 because of their participation in these groups. It would come to be known worldwide as the Blue Whale challenge.
It did not take long for the story to cause considerable alarm. The governor for Ulyanovsk in western Russia went on television to compare the Blue Whale challenge to the Islamic State group.
Soon the panic spread outside Russia. In Georgia, US, a 16-year-old girl killed herself. It was only later when her family had learned about the Blue Whale challenge that they realised the significance of the metre-high paintings she had finished at school shortly before she died.
They appeared to be of blue whales.
Then came other suicides: a boy named Isaiah Gonzalez, also in the United States, a 19-year-old in Hyderabad in India, and two Russian girls, Yulia Konstantinova and Veronika Volkova. A few days before she died, Konstantinova had posted an image of a blue whale on her Instagram account.
The suspect
In November 2016, 21-year-old Philipp Budeikin was arrested, charged with inciting teenagers to suicide.
Budeikin appeared to admit culpability. He told Russian media outlet Saint-Petersburg.ru: "There are people, and then there is biodegradable waste. I was cleansing our society of such people. Sometimes I start to think that it's wrong, but in the end I had the feeling I was doing the right thing."
He liked computers and was an aspiring producer of "witch house", an electronic music genre with occult themes. A former psychology student, the impression given by the media was that he had used highly developed tactics to manipulate teenagers into killing themselves.
He said he had created the game in 2013 under the name "f57", combining the sound of the start of his name, Philipp, and the last two digits of his phone number. On 10 May 2017 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.
'Shivers on my skin'
It seemed like an open-and-shut case. Further investigation, however, has revealed that little about the Blue Whale challenge was quite as straightforward as it seemed.
Evgeny Berg was on his way to work when he first read about the Vkontakte chat rooms.
"It made a strong impression on me. It was May but it was very gloomy. I thought 'Oh my God, there is a man out there who is trying to kill a lot of children in Russia.' And I felt shivers on my skin."
Berg, an investigative journalist at Meduza, a Russian-language independent media organisation, decided to dig deeper. His research took him to Sergey Pestov, the father of one of the girls who died around Christmas 2015.
After his daughter's death, Pestov and his wife founded an organisation called Saving Children from Cybercrime. They produced a brochure. It implied that foreign intelligence might be to blame for their daughter's death and that operatives were destroying the Russian people by inciting their children to suicide.
Pestov became a key source of statistics for the original Novaya Gazeta piece.
"He used media sources and open sources to count a bunch of cases all over Russia which were, in his opinion, connected with suicide groups," says Evgeny Berg. "And this number was 130."
This is the same number that was first quoted in the Novaya Gazeta piece. "So that's where the number started" says Berg, "with the father of a girl who tragically died at the end of 2015."
In a story shrouded in rumour and hearsay, this 130 figure is one of the very few widely reported "facts". But even though it is still being used by many news outlets, the figure is tenuous. According to Evgeny Berg and Meduza, it originates with a parent trying to unravel the reasons behind a personal tragedy.
The Novaya Gazeta article has been viewed over one and a half million times, according to the paper.
More from BBC Trending
Reporter responds
We took Evgeny Berg's allegations - that the foundations of the Novaya Gazeta article were, at best, unsteady - directly to the reporter, Galina Mursalieva. She rejected the claim that her report relied on a single flawed statistic.
"This number 130 wasn't based on the conclusions of one father who lost his child," says Mursalieva. "No. This is absolutely wrong. It was based on the conclusions of over 200 parents who lost their children. The father of the girl who died just helped during that period of time. I don't have any reason not to trust them. I checked many things."
Mursalieva had worked on the story for months and included interviews with the parents of deceased children and experts in law and psychology. She says she published it because she wanted to spur into action investigators who she thought weren't taking the problem seriously enough.
But despite the considerable column inches dedicated to the "challenge" over the years, not a single suicide has so far been proved to be linked to these groups, neither by journalists nor police.
"There have actually been way more than 130 cases," claims Mursalieva. "But tell me - who could confirm that this happened? How can it be confirmed?"
That seems to be the crux of it. How can the cause of a suicide ever be "proved"? It might be more accurate to say that teenagers suffering from depression, some of them suicidal, could be drawn to groups that deal with that topic. These same children may use similar images, like blue whales, to articulate their feelings online.
Blue Whale: Fact or Fiction?
With its surreal memes and creepy stories that blur fact and fiction, the subculture of teenage messaging boards is easy for adults to misinterpret. It is possible that journalists and concerned parents accessed these groups and brought together disparate elements into a story that wasn't really there.
That reading tallies with the findings of Alexandra Arkhipova, a professor in Folklore Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities. When she and her colleagues entered the online groups alleged to be connected with the Blue Whale challenge, they found something strange.
"All of these 'curators'," says Arkhipova, "turned out to be children aged 12 to 14."
Far from being manipulative adults, all the curators seemed to be just kids who had read or heard about the game. In fact, Arkhipova's research suggests that the "challenge" might not have really existed in any substantial way before the Novaya Gazeta article was published.
Arkhipova says that the "curators" she came across online were copycats, acting out step by step the parts of a game that was being widely reported in the press.
"In all these groups people, mainly young people, were waiting for this game," says Arkhipova. "This game never starts."
Prisoner
But where does that leave the story of Philipp Budeikin, the man who confessed to creating the game? Oddly, it might have something to do with his music career.
Friends of Budeikin, speaking to the investigative journalist Evgeny Berg, disputed the claim that he is an evil mastermind.
In fact, they say that he filled online groups with "shock" content related to Rina Palenkova and suicide in order to get as many followers as possible - and then advertise his music.
It is a common practice on VKontakte, where people exploit access to a large amount of followers to advertise other projects or sell products.
When Budeikin was arrested, there were 15 charges against him. By the following month, all but one had collapsed.
The truth at the heart of the Blue Whale challenge is surely both more sad and more mundane than the breathless articles might have us believe. Russia's suicide rates are high especially among the young. It has one of the highest rates of adolescent suicide in the world.
Yes, some teenagers appear to have been drawn into online forums where suicide was being discussed. And in those forums, blue whale memes were being shared. But the idea of a sinister game, one that slowly roped in vulnerable teens and led them down an increasingly tortured path to suicide, seems to be a simplistic explanation for a complex problem.
There is no silver bullet for tackling suicide amongst teenagers. Nor is there a bogeyman that can be locked up to prevent it.
Do you have a story for us? Email BBC Trending.
Story by Ant Adeane
With reporting by Olga Robinson, BBC Monitoring
If you need support for mental health issues, advice is available via the BBC Action Line.
More from Trending: Smartphone users warned to be careful of the Antichrist
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You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
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Try to swat a fly and it will soon become clear that they're faster than you. Much faster. But how on Earth do these tiny creatures - with their minuscule brains - outwit us so easily? | By Rory GallowayScience writer
You've probably pondered it after chasing a fly around your house and flailing your shoe with repeated, unsuccessful swats. How does it move so fast? Can it read my mind?
It was the question put to the BBC World Service CrowdScience team for our most recent episode addressing the apparent super powers of tiny animals. The answer is that, compared with you and me, flies essentially see the world in slow motion.
To illustrate this, have a look at a clock with a ticking hand. As a human, you see the clock ticking at a particular speed. But for a turtle it would appear to be ticking at twice that speed. For most fly species, each tick would drag by about four times more slowly. In effect, the speed of time differs depending on your species.
This happens because animals see the world around them like a continuous video. But in reality, they piece together images sent from the eyes to the brain in distinct flashes a set number of times per second. Humans average 60 flashes per second, turtles 15, and flies 250.
It's all relative
The speed at which those images are processed by the brain is called the "flicker fusion rate". In general, the smaller the species, the faster its critical flicker fusion rate - and flies, in particular, put us to shame.
Professor Roger Hardie, from the University of Cambridge, investigates how flies' eyes work, and he has an experiment to determine their flicker fusion rate.
"The flicker fusion rate is simply how fast a light has to be turning on and off before it's perceived or seen as just a continuous light" says Prof Hardie.
Roger inserts tiny glass electrodes into the living light sensitive cells of their eyes - photoreceptors - before flashing LED lights at faster and faster speeds. Each flash of the LED produces a tiny electrical current in the photoreceptors that a computer can graph onto a screen. Tests reveal the fastest fly records distinct responses to flickering up to 400 times per second, more than six times faster than our own rate.
The fastest vision of all is found in a species literally called a "killer fly". It's a tiny predatory species found in Europe that catches other flies out of the air with super-fast reactions. In her "fly lab" at Cambridge University, Dr Paloma Gonzales-Bellido demonstrates the killer flies' hunting behaviour by releasing fruit fly prey into a special filming box with a female killer fly.
Paloma records the behaviour at 1,000 frames per second using slow motion video cameras with a recording buffer. The attached computer constantly saves the video, over-writing itself every twelve seconds. When the fly moves, Paloma clicks a button to permanently save the last 12 seconds.
"Our reaction time is so slow that if we were to stop it when we think something is happening it would have happened already," says Dr Gonzales-Bellido. Essentially, we can't even click a button before the behaviour has happened, it's that fast.
Fly vs fly
With the killer flies and their prey in the filming box, initially the killer fly just sat around motionless, but as one of the fruit flies flew about 7cm above it, there was a flash of movement and suddenly the killer fly was at the bottom of the box chomping into the quivering fruit fly.
Only looking at the slowed-down footage on the computer did it become clear what happened; the killer fly took off, circled the fruit fly three times as it tried to grab it repeatedly, before succeeding in capturing the elusive fruit fly with its front legs.
The whole behaviour from take-off to landing took just one second. It appears as a flash to our eyes, so conversely, the swatting hand of a human must appear at a snail's pace.
To enable this incredible speed of the killer fly, which is faster even than other fly species, the light-detecting cells in the killer fly eyes contain many more mitochondria (the "batteries" of biological cells) than are present in the same cells of other flies.
These are the batteries of the cell, so the speedy vision must take more energy than slow vision, explaining why all eyes aren't just set to the highest flicker fusion rate.
The carnivorous diet of the killer fly provides the large amounts of energy it needs to power these high-energy cells. But even if we had the same number of mitochondria in the cells or our own eyes, we wouldn't have the same vision speed because flies' light-sensitive cells have a totally different design to those of vertebrates.
Behind the structural differences in the eyes of flies is their evolutionary origin. Arthropods and vertebrates, the groups holding flies and humans, evolved their eyes entirely separately around 700-750 million years ago.
String theory
Flies' eyes evolved to pick up light with a series of tiny string-like structures that lie horizontal to the path that light travels through the eye. These structures react to light mechanically whereas vertebrates have long tube-like cells facing the light, with chemicals that react to light at the base.
This structure in the fly eye is something Roger studies in his lab. "It's more sensitive in terms of being able to give a large signal to the tiniest amount of light and it can also respond faster than the rods and cones in the vertebrate eye," he explains.
There are a few reasons for this higher sensitivity, but what Prof Hardie discovered is that they respond mechanically to light, as opposed to chemically as in cones and rods.
Mechanical responses enable faster neural signals. On top of that, there's a limit to the speed at which neural impulses can travel and the smaller nerve distances from fly eye to fly brain speeds up processing compared to larger vertebrates.
Some vertebrates experience much faster vision than our own. Whether the species is able to fly seems to correlate with faster vision, as does being small. This may be because small flying animals have to react so quickly during flight to avoid approaching obstacles.
'Slow motion swats'
The fastest vision of all is found in species that catch flies in the air.
Back with vertebrates, when investigating the vision of the pied flycatcher, a small perching bird that catches flies in flight, scientists at Uppsala University in Sweden discovered that it was able to identify a light flashing on and off 146 times per second from a continuous light source.
The birds were trained to associate a flashing light source with a tasty treat, and would accurately identify the flashing light up to this rate, placing their flicker fusion rate at 146. That's about twice the rate humans can see but still not as fast as the average fly.
This means the birds, like flies, experience each tick of the clock more slowly than humans.
There is an evolutionary pressure on the flycatchers to experience the ticking hand of the clock as slowly as possible in order to outwit their speedy prey. Over evolutionary time, birds that experienced 'slower ticking' could react faster to their prey, allowing them to eat more, raise more chicks and pass this speedy vision to future generations.
The flies that have been chased by the fast-sighted birds will be evolving faster reactions to get away. Creating an evolutionary arms race that has gone on longer even than the existence of birds. Prey flies have been evolving faster vision and reactions to escape predatory flies like the killer fly since they evolved flight.
Next time you try inanely to swat a fly, try not to be so disheartened. Your lumbering, slow motion swats are being thwarted by hundreds of millions of years of natural selection letting the flies watch your attempts in slow motion.
Between you and the fly, time, it seems, is relative.
Listen to 'CrowdScience' on the BBC World Service, the programme whose listeners inspired this article, and send your science questions to '[email protected]' :
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A driver has denied smuggling cocaine and heroin worth more than £6.5 million in a lorry transporting pizzas from Italy. | Adam Grzelj, 50, from Ljubljana, Slovenia, pleaded not guilty to two counts of importing class A drugs.
He appeared at Canterbury Crown Court via videolink.
Border Force officers found drugs hidden between pizza cartons during a search at the Port of Dover on 26 April, the Home Office said.
An estimated 82kg of cocaine and 3kg of heroin was discovered.
Judge Simon James told Mr Grzelj that a trial date would be fixed at a later hearing in July.
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What has Theresa May in common with Clement Attlee, Edward Heath and Tony Blair? Yes, they've all been prime minister, but they also all went to Oxford University. Actually, make that almost every general election-winning leader since World War Two. | By Joe NimmoBBC News
Since Robert Walpole, who is generally regarded as the UK's first prime minister, there have been 54 heads of government and 27 were educated at Oxford, compared with Cambridge, the runner-up with 14.
With a new crop of Oxford undergraduates arriving for freshers' week it seems a prime minister of the future is likely to be among them.
So what is it about the university? And how has it shaped the nation's politics?
Part of the reason is the world-renowned Oxford Union debating society.
"People learn that if you come to Oxford and perform well in the Union, you make the contacts, and you will get into politics," says Prof Geoffrey Evans, of Oxford's Nuffield College.
"So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Harrison Edmonds, the current president of the Oxford University Conservative Association, says the Union's debating style is "focused very much on the House of Commons".
"I think there's an explicit link with the idea that the Oxford Union is the place where these parliamentarians of the future cut their teeth and learn how to debate," he says.
"That's where the kind of showbiz side of things is done and that's where people with real ambition gravitate towards."
Writing in the days after the Brexit vote, Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper, who was at the university at the same time as David Cameron and Boris Johnson, said the politics of the Union were reflected in the EU referendum debate.
He said it was "a kind of children's parliament" and added: "The traditional climax of a Union election was one Etonian backstabbing another for the presidency."
Lord Heseltine, the Conservative party grandee and famed almost-prime minster, studied at Pembroke College and joined the Oxford Union and the Oxford Conservative Party Association on his first day there.
As a schoolboy, he had mapped out his future on an envelope - a millionaire in his 20s; MP in his 30s; Tory front bench in his 40s and Downing Street in his 50s.
At Oxford, Lord Heseltine rose to become president of the debating society, and said his time at Oxford made "a very significant contribution" to his success as a politician.
"Oxford presents every opportunity for political exchange and competition; the political parties are very active in their student equivalents," he said.
"Just the experience of being able to spend so much time in a world where you met other politicians, not just as students but also as speakers."
He remembers future politicians Jeremy Thorpe and Bryan Magee being eloquent during debates and was also impressed by Labour's Aneurin Bevan when he visited as a guest speaker.
"There are hugely impressive opportunities for undergraduates to meet people at the top of their tree, and that includes household names in the world of politics."
It is not just Oxford University that stands out for having educated a disproportionate number of future prime ministers.
Out of the UK's 54 heads of government, 27 went to Oxford, 19 went to Eton, 13 went to both, and of those, nine ended up in Christ Church College, which historically has strong ties with the public school.
"One effect of going to Eton and going to an Oxford college is that the impetus to go on and do something big is very high. You will know that people have gone on to achieve great things," says Oxford University professor of social geography Danny Dorling.
"Whereas if you went to a normal school you are unlikely to even become an MP, let alone prime minister - it's harder to imagine."
But despite the widespread belief that a degree in politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) is essential to a career in politics, meeting the right people is far more important, says Prof Evans.
"Very few prime ministers have done PPE at Oxford, but you do need to be in this environment and develop networks, that seems to really help."
He added: "Oxford just represents the very pinnacle of an education system designed to exclude people who don't have the right connections, schools, background, training.
"The process of social exclusion starts early in life and continues through the entire education system, so the students that Oxford selects from reflect disparities in attainment that accumulate from an early age."
Prof Dorling said: "The UK is a very, very socially divided country, and it has been for a long time. We draw our leaders from a very small group of people.
"There is also a kind of cosying effect later on, where those at the top are likely to have these backgrounds."
In a statement, an Oxford University spokesman said: "Oxford is absolutely committed to selecting undergraduates on the basis of academic ability and potential - regardless of background or access to resources.
"Our latest intake figures show more than 59% of UK offers went to students from state schools - the highest in at least four decades."
And Lord Heseltine says he is not worried about so many political leaders coming from Oxford, as long as they are "up to the job".
"There's nothing to say that you are going to succeed and persuade a significant political party to vote for you, just because you came from Oxford."
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The Queen and Prince Philip are visiting towns and cities all over the United Kingdom to mark the Diamond Jubilee. Other members of the Royal Family will be representing The Queen overseas, visiting Commonwealth countries, Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories throughout the year.
| 8 March, Leicester
23 March, Manchester
29 March, North London
26/27 April, Wales
1/2 May, South West England
15 May, South London
16/17 May, North West England
13/14 June, East Midlands
25 June, South East England
26/27 June, Northern Ireland
2/6 July, Scotland (Holyrood Week)
11/12 July, West Midlands
18/19 July, North East England
25 July, South East England
2/6 July, Scotland (Holyrood Week)
18/19 July, North East England
16/17 May, North West England
23 March, Manchester
8 March, Leicester
11/12 July, West Midlands
13/14 June, East Midlands
26/27 April, Wales
25 June, South East England
15 May, South London
29 March, North London
1/2 May, South West England
25 July, South East England
26/27 June, Northern Ireland
26/27 June, Northern Ireland
Belize, 3 March: Prince Harry names road after Queen
Jamaica, 6 March: Prince Harry 'races' Ussain Bolt
The Bahamas, 5 March: Prince Harry's boat breaks down
South Africa, 15-18 April: Princess Royal's visit
Mozambique, 19-21 April: Princess Royal marks Olympics
Canada, 21-25 May: Prince Charles and Camilla
The Isle of Man, 26 April: Prince Charles and Camilla
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive in Singapore
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit the Solomon Islands
India, 30 April-6 May: Prince Andrew's seven-day tour
Gibraltar, 11-13 June: The Earl and Countess of Wessex
Australia, 5 November: Prince Charles and Camilla
Dates for individual royal overseas trips will be published nearer the time.
Explore our Diamond Jubilee interactives
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A 15-year-old girl was a victim of upskirting after a man took photos under her school skirt, police have said. | The man allegedly followed her into Sainsbury's at Manchester Piccadilly station at 16:30 BST on 1 April.
British Transport Police (BTP) said he made "multiple attempts" to place his phone under her skirt and succeeded as she queued at a till.
The force has issued CCTV images of a man they want to speak to.
He is urged to come forward and is appealing for anyone who recognises him to contact them.
Upskirting became a criminal offence earlier this month with offenders facing up to two years in prison for taking a photo under somebody's clothing.
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Joe Biden was once the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. A few weeks ago, after a string of defeats, his campaign teetered on the edge of an electoral abyss. Now the former vice-president is scrambling his way back into contention. | Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
While the campaign is reluctant to admit it, the South Carolina primary on Saturday is make or break for Biden.
"If you send me out of South Carolina with a victory," Biden said, "there will be no stopping us."
Win, and his campaign lives on. Lose, and it's just about time to lower the curtain on his half-century career in American politics.
A last-minute lifeline
Through much of 2019, Biden and his campaign referred to South Carolina as his "firewall" - the state where his support was so strong even early setbacks could not dent his standing.
Now, the Biden team is referring to the first southern state to vote as a "launching pad", the place that will, at last, allow his presidential bid to take flight.
After a series of mid-February surveys showed Biden tied or only slightly ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders in the state, several recent surveys have the former vice-president up by double digits.
Polls weren't the only good news Biden received this week, either - he also received the backing of James Clyburn, the most important Democrat in the state of South Carolina.
It's difficult to overstate how important Clyburn's support could be for the former vice-president, who was visibly moved by Clyburn's endorsement.
It was the first thing Biden mentioned at a campaign appearance in Georgetown, an old industrial port town about 60 miles north of Charleston, later that day.
After Biden's event, Mack Smith - an African American who is retired - said he was torn between Biden and Tom Steyer, the California hedge-fund billionaire who has invested considerably time and money in courting the black vote in the state, but that Clyburn's testimonial "carries as a lot of weight".
"The vice-president, he's been there before," Smith said. "You know what it's all about, and I think he can do the job."
Clyburn, the third-ranking member of the Democratic House leadership team and the former leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, has the most powerful on-the-ground political organisation in South Carolina.
On Friday, Pete Buttigieg cancelled a campaign event with some black small-town mayors, reportedly because the participants backed out rather than be seen working against Clyburn's chosen candidate.
With Clyburn's help, Biden now appears poised to win the South Carolina primary, perhaps by a comfortable margin. From there, his campaign hopes a few days of "Biden comeback" stories will give him a boost going into the 14 states that hold primaries on the 3 March - so-called "Super Tuesday".
Rock bottom
Biden was considered the national front-runner for most of 2019, despite concerns about campaign stumbles and fumbles. Political prognosticators and analysts began wondering if Biden had a Donald Trump-like gift of political resilience.
Then the bottom dropped out - and quickly.
There was a shocking fourth in Iowa then a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire. His national poll numbers plummeted. In hindsight, the signs of trouble may have been there for some time.
His campaign team was not in touch with what Iowa is or what Iowa takes, says former congressman and Iowa Democratic Party chair Dave Nagle.
Nagle said Biden could have - should have - finished second in Iowa, given his name recognition, goodwill with voters and skill as retail politician. But a poor campaign organisation was compounded by a backward-looking message that failed to resonate.
"The economy, healthcare and climate change is where it's at this time," Nagle said. "But Biden was talking about civility, which people don't care about, and international relations, which people care about but they're not going to vote on."
Read more on Joe Biden
He was boasting about his past accomplishments and electability, without offering a concrete vision of where he wanted to take the country.
Polls have suggested Democratic voters are torn on whether they want a candidate who has the best chance to beat Trump or one who espouses a clear, bold political vision. Many of those in the latter have proven to be durable supporters of Bernie Sanders.
Biden's previous strength of "electability" seemed suddenly ephemeral. Democrats in Iowa, and across the US, began to wonder if he was the winning ticket after all.
By New Hampshire, the campaign was taking on water fast. At a rally in a high school gymnasium in Hudson, Biden appeared exhausted and dispirited. In a meandering speech, he took 15 minutes to deliver an applause line, as he recounted stories about medical tragedies, home foreclosures and lost jobs in a tired monotone. By primary day, Biden had already left for South Carolina, symbolically giving up before the final dismal results were announced.
In Nevada, Sanders ended up winning the state's caucuses by a decisive margin. But Biden placed second, giving his campaign enough life to soldier on.
A second lease on life
While the Nevada votes were still being counted on Sunday, Biden was on his way back to South Carolina, to start a frenzied final week of campaigning. On Monday night in Charleston, the contrast with his sometimes lacklustre events in New Hampshire was stark. The event in a College of Charleston gymnasium had not one but two bands, as the crowd was urged to chant "ready for Joe!"
The candidate himself seemed to have a new sense of energy and urgency, and a new rhetorical strategy - he focused on his plans for healthcare, gun control, addressing climate change and tackling student debt. He drew sharp distinctions with Sanders, saying his proposed programmes would be too expensive and disruptive for many Americans.
Unlike his New Hampshire appearances, Biden led with easy applause lines about defeating Trump, instead of drawn-out stories.
"I personally think that he is the only one that could beat Trump," said Robert Davis, a retiree who lives in nearby Seabrook Island. "Electability, that's the number-one issue."
Robert's wife, Cynthia, added that she thought Biden's struggles were more a reflection of the primary system, not the candidate. Fortunes, she said, were turning for their man.
"Where we start the election process is not where a candidate like Joe is going to be strong," she said. "And so by the time you get into real America, he's already fallen behind, so it puts him at a real disadvantage."
Words of warning
If South Carolina offered rays of hope for the previously beleaguered Biden campaign, his week of South Carolina events - in Charleston and elsewhere - still offered their share of warning signs, too.
The former vice-president continues to struggle to attract younger voters. Even among those who showed up at Biden's College of Charleston rally on Monday, there were concerns.
Jonathan Powell, who is backing Biden, said all his friends are for Sanders and that they regularly try to convince him to switch.
"I mean they've got valid points because I'm more progressive," the 24-year-old from Sommerville said. "I probably agree with Bernie more, but I'm not sure he can get things done."
A College of Charleston junior, WJ Queen, said he grew up in the conservative town of Gaffney but doesn't like Trump and would keep an open mind about Biden. He says most of his fellow students, however, think Biden is a nice enough man, but they're more inspired by candidates like Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders.
"They're looking for a more diverse perspective, and Joe Biden does come off sometimes as the old white man in the room," he said. "Or they want somebody who is really out there trying to help the working class, and Bernie Sanders does have that genuineness to him."
If the young are Biden's weakness, the bulwark of Biden's support in the state remains black voters, who traditionally make up more than 60% of Democratic primary participants. Even here, however, the age divisions are apparent.
"In South Carolina, you have a lot of older black people that are really riding with Joe Biden because they feel like, policy aside, they're just looking at it as which white dude will other white dudes vote for, and they don't want to waste their vote," said KJ Kearney, a 36-year-old writer and activist from Charleston.
"People who are younger, my age, we can be a little bit more idealistic and vote for people who have the policies that we want because we feel like we have a little bit more time to make the change that we want to see in the world."
Recent surveys suggest Sanders - as well as Steyer - have been making headway with black voters as a whole, but the man who spent eight years as vice-president to Barack Obama still has considerably goodwill in the state's black community.
Read more on Bernie Sanders
"I feel that he'll do a good job," says Penny Henderson of Taylor, who attended the Reverend Al Sharpton's candidate forum on Wednesday morning. "Because of his experience and because of being with Obama, who was to me an excellent president."
Henderson, who is not yet fully sold on Biden, says her top concern is finding someone who can beat Trump - a common theme among South Carolina Democrats of all backgrounds.
At Biden's Georgetown event, Mary DeVey, a retired nurse, said she made up her mind to go with Biden over Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar just a day earlier. After watching Biden struggle in earlier debates, she had her doubts - but seeing him in person made her more confident in his abilities.
"I thought he might have lost a step or two, but it really re-enforced that he didn't," she said. "He's really sharp and stands up for what I stand for."
Mary Pat Donnellon, a software company worker from Charleston, says she settled on Biden after his second-place finish in Nevada because he seems to be the moderate candidate best positioned to stop Sanders, who she thinks is unelectable, and because he's a "good and decent human being".
The path ahead
A path to the Democratic nomination that seemed clear in the days after Biden entered the race last May is now beset with complications. His early weakness in last year's debates, as well has his poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, have prevented him from knocking out other candidates appealing to the same moderate voters.
It has also opened the door for the late arriving Bloomberg to use his multibillion-dollar personal fortune to elbow into the presidential conversation.
Meanwhile, Sanders has consolidated much of the support of the progressive left.
Perhaps the only thing that's clear is that Biden, who is making his third bid for the Democratic nomination, won't let go of his White House dreams easily.
"You don't have to do this, Joe, you really don't," Obama reportedly told Biden last year as the former vice-president was considering a presidential bid.
The former president reportedly predicted a rough campaign ahead and had concerns that Biden's team was too old and too out of touch - worries that it is safe to say have at least partially come to fruition.
Biden, per the New York Times, told Obama he wished he had run in 2016 and could never forgive himself if he didn't take a shot at unseating Donald Trump
If he ends up getting that chance at this point, South Carolina Democrats - and what they do on Saturday - will be a big reason why.
Additional reporting by Haley Thomas
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How do you build in the most isolated place on Earth? For decades Antarctica - the only continent with no indigenous population - hosted only the simplest huts as human shelters. But, as Matthew Teller finds out, architecture in the coldest, driest, windiest reaches of our planet is getting snazzier. | It's an eye-popping, futuristic design - a dark, sleek building, low and long, that is destined to be a temporary waterfront home for up to 65 people at a time.
The price tag is a hefty $100m (£80m). And while a Chinese company is building it, it's not in China, and almost no-one will ever see it.
Welcome to Brazil's Comandante Ferraz Antarctic research station.
After the original burned down in 2012, the Brazilian navy launched an architectural competition for a replacement design - won by a local firm - and then awarded the building tender to a Chinese defence and engineering contractor, CEIEC. It's due to be completed in 2018.
Located on a small island just off the coast of Antarctica, it lies almost 1,000km (600 miles) south of the tip of South America. No scheduled air routes come close and it's way off any shipping lanes.
And even if you could reach it yourself, like all Antarctic research stations Comandante Ferraz will be closed to the public. Virtually nobody other than the crews posted there will ever see it in the flesh. So why, you may ask, spend so much on architectural style? Wouldn't a dull but functional building do just as well?
Brazil is not alone in paying for eye-catching design, though.
In 2013, India unveiled its Bharati station, with a similar modernist design.
It was made from 134 prefabricated shipping containers, for ease of transport and construction, but you would never guess it from the outside.
And the following year, South Korea opened its Jang Bogo station - a grand, triple-winged module lifted on steel-reinforced blocks, capable of supporting a crew of 60.
What is the explanation for this architectural flamboyance?
"Antarctic stations have become the equivalent of embassies on the ice," says Prof Anne-Marie Brady, editor-in-chief of the Polar Journal and author of China as a Polar Great Power.
"They are showcases for a nation's interests in Antarctica - status symbols."
Those interests could be purely scientific. But a moratorium on mineral prospecting becomes easier to review in just over 40 years' time, and every Antarctic player also wants to be ready to take advantage, should anything change.
Planting a dramatic building on the ice has become the modern equivalent of explorers of old planting a flag.
It wasn't always like this.
In March 1903, the 33 men of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition landed on the outlying South Orkney Islands and built a dry-stone shack.
Expedition leader William Bruce grandly named it Omond House, after the Edinburgh meteorologist, Robert Traill Omond. It was Antarctica's first permanent building, and is maintained today by the Argentine government as part of its Orcadas base.
For years afterwards, throughout the heroic age of polar exploration headed by Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton and Mawson, nothing much fancier than wooden huts went up on the white continent.
Then came a - relative - building boom, spurred by the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-58, a global project for co-operation in science. The 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which resulted from the IGY, suspended all territorial claims, but that led many countries to set about consolidating their presence in other ways, such as construction.
The treaty's clause giving countries conducting "substantial research activity" in Antarctica a vote in meetings to determine the continent's future was another incentive to maintain a physical presence.
The US's sprawling McMurdo research station dates from this period. Powered from 1962 to 1972 by a nuclear reactor, it is the biggest settlement on the continent, housing a summer population of about 1,200.
For years, though, what with the huge technical and logistical difficulties in building anything in Antarctica, architectural glamour stayed off the list of priorities.
The UK's Halley station was just "a few wooden huts inside giant steel tubes" when meteorologist Peter Gibbs arrived in 1980. It lay buried beneath 15m (50ft) of snow.
"It was like living in a submarine, clambering up and down ladders to get in and out," Gibbs remembers.
Antarctica as a whole has so little precipitation it is classified as a desert, but snow does fall near the coasts, and in the interior low temperatures mean fallen snow accumulates faster than it can melt. Polar winds blow this snow around the continent, so that any object standing proud of the flat surface quickly gains a downwind "tail" of blown snow. Snow accumulation can swamp and crush buildings with ease.
The first Halley station, built in 1956, was abandoned 12 years later, when it too had become "like a submarine", as Gibbs puts it.
The version he worked in, Halley III, was built in 1973 and lasted only 10 years. Until Halley VI arrived in 2013, all were defeated by snow accumulation, and by the moving ice shelf on which they stood. At Halley's location the ice slides around 1.5m (5ft) a day towards the sea, but to maintain accuracy the station's scientific measurements have to be made at the same place year by year.
Halley VI, however, is Antarctica's first relocatable research station. Its eight connected pods - like giant, colourful train carriages, which can be isolated to limit the spread of fire - sit on hydraulic legs mounted on huge, 8m-long skis. This means that the pods can be detached from each other, dragged by bulldozers to a new location, and the whole station reassembled.
That design is being put to good use, as Halley is currently being moved to avoid a chasm that is opening up in the ice nearby.
And Halley VI is both glamorous and comfortable.
Its bijou bedrooms feel like a classy budget hotel. Interiors are fitted in vivid reds, blues and greens to compensate for the lack of colour outside. Halley's pool table and sofas sit beneath the only double-height internal space in Antarctica, stylishly lit - outside the months of winter darkness, anyway - by tall, semi-opaque windows. Beside the drinks bar climbs a spiral staircase, clad in aromatic Lebanese cedar veneer, chosen to stimulate an often-overlooked sense in the almost completely smell-free Antarctic environment.
"All the newest bases look good as well as do the science - it's a reflection of the priorities of our era," says Anne-Marie Brady.
South Africa was one of the first countries to solve the problem of snow accumulation with its SANAE IV base, which opened in 1997. It was designed with stilt-like legs, which let snow blow under the building.
Germany applied the same concept to its Neumayer III base, which opened in 2009, with an extra refinement. Sixteen hydraulic pillars allow the entire two-storey structure to be raised every year by around a metre. The foot of each pillar is then lifted and replaced on a new firm base of packed snow.
Another element of Antarctic architecture that has become critical is energy efficiency. Most stations run on polar diesel, which is expensive, polluting and difficult to transport. Belgium's Princess Elisabeth station, an aerodynamic pod raised on steel legs, is the first with zero emissions.
Since its inauguration in 2009 it has run entirely on solar and wind energy, and - even here - has no heating. The station's layered design means interior temperatures are maintained from waste heat generated by electrical systems and human activity, and dense wall insulation reduces heat loss to almost zero.
If the Princess Elisabeth station looks like something out of a Bond movie, China's latest Antarctic station Taishan - its fourth - has been likened to a flying saucer. It was rush-built in 45 days in 2013-14, and is intended to last only a few years.
"China will probably start building a fifth station this year," says Anne-Marie Brady.
Like all the rest, few people will ever see it.
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Dong Guanhua is a thorn in the side of both the Vatican and the Chinese state. Without the Pope's permission, or Beijing's, this 58-year-old labourer from a village in northern China calls himself a bishop. | Carrie GracieChina editor@BBCCarrieon Twitter
China and the Vatican are believed to be close to a historic agreement governing the selection of bishops for 10 million Chinese Roman Catholics.
Such an agreement would be the first sign of rapprochement between a mighty state and a proud Church since the Communist Revolution of 1949.
The last thing either side wants at this delicate moment is a do-it-yourself bishop like Dong Guanhua getting in the way.
There are about 100 Catholic bishops in China. It's a muddled and troubled picture with some approved by Beijing, some approved by the Vatican and, informally, many now approved by both.
Outlaw
After seven decades of conflict, both Church and state would like to bring order to this fractured patchwork. But China's Roman Catholics are not privy to the details of the deal under negotiation and Dong Guanhua fears it will only make divisions worse.
"I respect the Pope but I don't support this. The Church will be harmed because this hardline government will not bend. It actually wants to create chaos in the true Church. The more chaos the better in the government's mind."
Dong Guanhua has long been an outlaw in Beijing's eyes. The lifelong Catholic from Zhengding County in Hebei Province has refused to register with the state's Patriotic Catholic Association, because it does not acknowledge the authority of the Pope and, in turn, is not recognised by the Vatican.
Instead he cleaves to the so-called "underground church" - the community which recognises only the spiritual legitimacy of Rome.
But as the Vatican draws closer to Beijing, it too has now denounced Dong Guanhua's decision to call himself a bishop as a "grave crime". In other words, Dong Guanhua has become an outlaw twice over.
He says he'll answer to his conscience and shrugs off critics from both powerful camps who say his behaviour is crazy.
"There are people who say Jesus was crazy too. Sometimes the government gives rewards to people who yield. I don't covet those rewards. I'm not afraid of anything because my conscience is clear."
Dong Guanhua has no church. Instead he preaches at home, with farming families in quilted jackets huddled in his front yard. Under an open sky they chant the responses of the Mass, a pale sun filtering through toxic haze and tangled power lines to illuminate their faces.
Despite the freezing temperatures and the fear of police harassment, there are far more worshippers here than in the big local government church across the road: Dong Guanhua's congregation unwilling to let the state get between themselves and their God.
"If there was religious freedom, we would go to the state church. We don't want to be out in the cold," he says.
Above ground
Some 200 miles (320km) away, a very different Sunday service in being held.
Beijing's magnificent South Cathedral is not a church for outlaws but part of the state-approved Catholic faith. There every pew and every aisle is full, old and young gazing through clouds of incense towards a statue of Christ flanked by vases of green bamboo stems.
Generation to generation, these "above-ground" Catholics too have held onto their faith, while accepting state supervision.
Asked how they feel about the prospect of an agreement between their government and the Pope, many are unwilling to comment.
But some are cautiously optimistic and one woman declares defiantly that if the Church in China could be led by the Pope without government involvement, it would "make the faith more pure".
Pope Francis clearly yearns for the opportunity to heal this long-divided Church and to be recognised as spiritual shepherd of the above-ground flock as well as the underground flock.
An agreement with Beijing which allowed this, and which achieved a compromise on the selection of bishops, would also be a first step to re-establishing diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China.
For Beijing, the prize is also great. Agreement with the Vatican might help impose order on a troublesome and conflicted community, leaving outlaws like Dong Guanhua marginalised.
Globally, it would also enhance China's prestige. At last, the world's rising superpower engaging with the world's super soft power.
Treading carefully
Many are hopeful. Father Jeroom Heyndrickx is a Belgian priest who has spent 60 years trying to help China's Catholics and says that despite doubters and obstacles on both sides, this is the best opportunity in his lifetime.
"For 2000 years in China, the emperor was emperor and pope at the same time and this also applied to communist China. But China has changed and the Church has changed and this is what constitutes a new opportunity for this dialogue to succeed.
"China knows that globalisation is happening. Now it openly professes itself to be a country ready to have a dialogue with all different kinds of ideology."
Pope Francis is doing his utmost to make dialogue succeed. He has been careful to avoid criticising China on religious freedoms or human rights.
He has met groups from the state-backed Chinese church on their visits to Rome.
As a result, some underground Catholics complain that he risks betraying the memory of those who suffered and died for their loyalty to Rome, and abandoning today's true believers to the control of a communist state.
They also point to tightening control in many areas of Chinese public life and worry that a deal between Beijing and the Vatican may result in less religious freedom not more.
'No compromise'
One leading sceptic is Joseph Zen, the retired cardinal of Hong Kong.
In a recent interview he told the BBC: "A bad agreement makes the situation worse. Without an agreement, we have to tolerate many things but that's OK. Our faith tells us that we have to suffer from persecution. The communist regime never changes its policies. They don't need to compromise. They want a complete surrender."
China's religious authorities declined all requests for interview.
Back in the yard of the outlaw bishop, with the open-air service over and the congregation departed, Dong Guanhua draws a red curtain around his altar to protect it from the elements.
The last dry leaves whisper from winter branches and a couple of chickens look on from a corrugated iron roof.
Asked what message he has for Pope Francis on the threshold of a historic agreement, he replies: "I would tell him to be careful. If the deal goes well, God will be pleased, but if it doesn't, the Pope will be punished. Compromise is a bad thing. It breaks the integrity of our faith. Ninety percent of believers here share my opinion."
The first flakes of winter snow swirl down and Dong Guanhua goes inside to pray. The yard is empty and night is falling fast.
The silence seems to hold a thought - that deals between a mighty faith and a mighty state are only one recurring theme in Christian history, and that individual conscience is another.
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Two paramilitary policemen have been injured in a blast in Imphal, the capital of India's troubled north-eastern Manipur state. | The Assam Rifles personnel were on a patrol in Keishampet locality when explosives placed in a two-wheeler scooter went off, police said.
Reports said the condition of one of the injured policemen was serious.
The state of Manipur borders Burma and has many separatist groups fighting for independence from India.
But, it was not known which of the groups was behind the explosion.
Keishampet is known to be a stronghold of the separatist group Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) of Manipur and is known to be close to India's Maoist rebels.
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Nearly 70 firearms and 1,000 rounds of ammunition have been handed in to police during the first five days of a gun amnesty in London. | Scotland Yard launched the drive on Monday, enabling people to hand in weapons without fear of prosecution.
The amnesty, which runs until 23 November, means firearms and ammunition can be surrendered anonymously at police stations.
Each weapon will be examined for criminal evidence.
The force said it was particularly looking to stop antique guns falling into the hands of gangs.
Rules for buying working antique guns were tightened in July, preventing convicts from buying or owning them, and soon dealers will be required to keep computerised records for at least 20 years.
The Met has released a map of police stations where weapons can be handed in.
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The city of Tunis has been in mourning on the day after a deadly gun attack on tourists visiting a famous museum left 23 people dead. | BBC journalist Aidan Lewis is now tweeting from the Tunisian capital, where he encountered a city trying to retain a sense of normality, even as it made a defiant stand against violence.
Follow Aidan on Twitter for more tweets from Tunis.
Watch Aidan's video from outside the Bardo Museum here.
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A teenager is still in a coma after he was attacked during a night out in Majorca. 16-year-old Alex Hughes from Cardiff was hit over the head with a bottle as he left a nightclub 10 days ago. He was on holiday with a couple of his friends. They've all stayed on the island, visiting him every day in the hope he'll wake up. Reporter Debbie Randle went to the resort of Port d'Andratx to meet them.
| By Debbie RandleNewsbeat reporter
They describe it as the worst 10 days of their lives.
Sitting outside a bar, in the sunshine, looking out to sea is probably what some of them were looking forward to. But now they don't even notice it.
They're stuck in limbo, waiting patiently for their friend to wake up from his coma and come to join them so they can all start to enjoy their holiday.
Josh is feeling the worst of it. He's Alex's friend and the pair were sharing an apartment.
He was also there the night Alex was attacked.
He describes what happened. He said: "The first nights were the best of my life. Then that happened to Al... it just changed it all."
On that night Alex, Josh and their other friend Harry had been at the same bar we're all sitting at now.
They'd met a few girls and decided to go with them to the nightclub up the road.
Josh said: "It was really crowded in there and as we were accidentally bumping into these kids they were like pushing us off and shoving us."
Vigil
When it all started to get a bit nasty, they all decided to leave.
But once they got outside, Josh says the teenagers from the club confronted them.
"Four of them came running up to us, two went over to Alex and two went over to me.
"As Al turned around to one of them, the other one hit him over the head with a bottle."
To start with it looked like Alex was OK. But as the local lads started to follow them they panicked and tried to jump over a fence into the car park of their apartments.
Josh says it was then clear there was something wrong.
He said: "He was lying over the fence, just like hanging off it.
"So I walked over and brought him off the fence and as I put him on the floor he was like, 'I'm losing blood, I'm concussed, I think I'm dying'. Then he went to sleep."
Alex hasn't woken up since. He'd suffered a brain haemorrhage and was rushed to hospital.
He's been in a coma. His condition is decribed as critical but stable.
They may all still be in Majorca, but since that night their holiday has been over.
Alex's parents have flown over and been at his bedside. Josh has been visiting Alex up to twice a day, speaking to him and trying to get him to wake up.
Three Spanish teenagers have been questioned over the attack and are now in their parents' custody at home while a judge decides what to do next.
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Few movies capture the popular zeitgeist quite like King's Speech director Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl. It tells the story of the 1930s Danish artist Einar Wegener, played by Eddie Redmayne, who became one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery, having decided to live life as a woman called Lili Elbe. The film also features Wegener's wife Gerda, played by Alicia Vikander. | By Holly Rubenstein Entertainment reporter
The Danish Girl comes in a year that has put transgender issues firmly into the spotlight. From the transition of Bruce to Caitlyn Jenner, to the Emmy-winning success of Amazon's series Transparent, even the White House chose to screen The Danish Girl as part of a celebration of LGBT artists.
Ironic, then, that Hooper has said the script was passed around for about 12 years struggling to secure backing because of what was seen as the story's limited appeal.
"I hope it provides a message of hope," says the Oscar-winning Hooper, who has previously worked with Redmayne on Elizabeth I and Les Miserables.
"It's a message that transgender history matters. These were two extraordinary pioneers of the transgender movement who I think history had marginalised."
Facing criticism
Before locking the final cut of the film, he decided to screen the movie to one of Les Miserables' musical directors, who was in the process of transitioning while making the film.
"The lights came up and she had tears on her face, and she said the amazing words, 'How did you know?' She said it was in many respects very true to her own experience and that was for me the most exciting."
Despite this sensitivity to the subject matter, Hooper has faced criticism for not choosing to cast a transgender woman in the title role. He defended the decision, telling Variety that access to trans actors is limited, and that he had always had Redmayne in mind.
"There was something in Eddie that was drawn to the feminine," he says. "He played the girls' parts in school plays. I was a bit like Gerda in the film because Gerda becomes fascinated by the femininity in her husband and starts to paint it. I was fascinated by the femininity in Eddie and wanted to explore it."
The film is as much about Gerda, and her demonstration of unconditional love and acceptance through an experience which is as much a transition for her as for her husband.
"I looked up to her," says Vikander.
"I questioned, would I be able to do what she did. It was an extraordinary experience trying to find that strength because she's never passive. Lili needs to be who she is but Gerda makes the decision to stand by her side. I'm a romantic at heart."
In fact, it is Gerda who suggests her husband dresses as a woman. She asks Wegener to first pose for a painting, but more significantly then suggests he attends a ball dressed as Lili, and she goes on to paint portraits of her husband as a woman.
"You helped bring Lili to life but she was always there," Lili later tells Gerda.
So did Gerda always know that her husband wanted to be a woman?
"She was able to see the inner self of the person she loved… When you know somebody really well, it's not a big surprise when something comes up to the surface," says Vikander.
Award nominations
Vikander's scene-stealing performance, which has been nominated for a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award, gives the film "tremendous heart", says Hooper.
"It's phenomenal. In her hands Gerda never feels like a victim, which I think is really interesting."
It has been an extraordinary year for the Swede who came to the public's attention with roles in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Testament of Youth, Burnt and Ex Machina, for which she has been nominated for another Golden Globe.
Her star is set to rise further when she acts alongside Matt Damon in the fifth Jason Bourne movie.
Redmayne is attracting an equal amount of attention, following his Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe best actor nominations for his role.
The 33-year-old won the best actor award at this year's Oscars for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, another transformative role.
With the screenplay originating from 2004, The Danish Girl has been 11 years in the making, its subject matter proving it a difficult film for Hollywood's financiers to get behind.
But the critical recognition being given to Hooper, Vikander and Redmayne shows they are together a winning combination - and suggesting The Danish Girl was worth the wait.
The Danish Girl is due for release in UK cinemas on 1 January.
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A rail passenger has lost an arm after falling between a platform and a train as it was pulling out of a station. | The 18:48 BST train from Hereford to Birmingham New Street was delayed for more than an hour at Droitwich while emergency crews attended the scene.
The man was airlifted to hospital. It is not clear if he had been getting off the train at the time.
Rail operator London Midland said there would be a full investigation into what happened.
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US, Afghan and Taliban officials have all been careful to avoid calling Saturday's agreement in Doha "a peace deal." But in Afghanistan, a sense of cautious optimism has been rising ever since a week long "reduction in violence" or partial truce leading to the signing came into effect. | By Secunder KermaniBBC News, Kabul
How did we get here? And why did it take so long?
The Afghan war has been a bloody stalemate for years now, with the Taliban increasingly controlling or contesting more territory, yet unable to capture and hold major urban centres.
There seems to have been a growing realisation, both amongst the group's leadership and in the US that neither side is capable of an outright military victory. President Trump, meanwhile, has been clear about his desire to withdraw American troops from the country.
One key concession by the US, which allowed negotiations to take place, was the decision in 2018 to change its longstanding policy that the Taliban should talk first of all to the Afghan government, who the insurgents dismiss as illegitimate.
Instead the US sat down directly with the Taliban to address their chief public demand - the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. Those negotiations led to Saturday's accord, with the Taliban agreeing in exchange to address the core reason for the US invasion in 2001, the group's links to al-Qaeda.
This deal now opens the door to separate, wider talks between the militants and other Afghan political leaders - including government figures.
Those discussions will be much more challenging. Somehow there will have to be a reconciliation between the Taliban's vision of an "Islamic Emirate" and the democratic modern Afghanistan that has been created since 2001.
Where does that leave women's rights? What is the Taliban's stance on democracy? These are questions that will only be answered when the "intra-Afghan talks" begin.
Up until now, the Taliban have been, perhaps deliberately, vague. There are possible obstacles even before those talks begin. The Taliban want 5,000 of their prisoners released before they start. The Afghan government wants to use those detainees as a bargaining chip in the talks to persuade the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire.
Then there's the ongoing political dispute over the results of the presidential election - with Ashraf Ghani's rival Abdullah Abdullah alleging fraud. A backdrop of political instability could make it harder to establish the "inclusive" negotiating team international observers want to see sitting across the table from the Taliban.
One Afghan official admitted to me that even when they start, the "intra-Afghan" negotiations could take years. But the US has signalled its intent to withdraw all its forces within 14 months if the Taliban fulfil their side of the agreement.
It is not immediately clear if that means the US will stay on beyond that time, if no settlement has been reached.
Afghan officials have emphasised the pullout is "conditional", but one diplomat told me withdrawal was only contingent on the "intra-Afghan talks" starting, not concluding. He expressed concern that if the US were to pull forces out and the Taliban decided to up the ante on the battlefield, Afghan forces would be left extremely vulnerable.
Other analysts have warned that the Taliban doesn't appear to be in the mood for concessions, presenting the agreement today to their supporters as a "victory". The Taliban do however appear to want international legitimacy and recognition. The fanfare around the ceremony in Doha has given them that, and they may feel negotiations offer the best chance of achieving their aims.
The priority for many ordinary Afghans, at least in the short term, is a substantive reduction in violence. We'll find out in the coming weeks, when the warmer spring weather generally heralds the start of "fighting season", if that will happen.
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New methods to deter white-tailed sea eagles from preying on lambs are being trialled in Argyll and on Skye. | Crofters and farmers in the Highlands and Islands have for a number of years complained of the large birds of prey taking the young livestock.
In the past there was a scheme compensating sheep producers for lambs lost to the eagles.
The new techniques being trialled include audio or light-based bird scaring devices.
Trees where the birds nest close to areas with sheep near Oban are also being felled.
Scottish Natural Heritage is working with other organisations, including Forest Enterprise Scotland, on the trials.
Sea eagles are the UK's largest bird of prey and one of its most protected species.
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Britney Spears was the all-American pop princess who shot to superstardom in her teens before a very public breakdown. Now, her appointment as a judge on the US X Factor represents a full return to the media spotlight. | The most stark illustration of how far Britney Spears had fallen came on 16 February 2007 when, after she spent just 24 hours in a rehabilitation clinic, the paparazzi tracked her down to a Los Angeles tattoo parlour - and discovered she was completely bald.
The act of shaving her head was a clear rejection of her former persona and of her life as a pop starlet in the public gaze.
Her meltdown came after eight years as the archetypal modern pop starlet - "Miss American Dream since I was 17," as she put it in her 2007 single Piece of Me.
She found sudden fame as the blonde girl with pigtails and a school uniform in the video of her debut single ...Baby One More Time, a massive global hit.
Her first taste of the spotlight had come as one of the young cast of Disney's TV show All New Mickey Mouse Club alongside Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake in 1994.
After her solo breakthrough, she became a fixture in the charts and in the gossip columns, but carefully cultivated a squeaky-clean image.
She had a three-year relationship with fellow Mouseketeer and pop star Justin Timberlake, but they split in 2002, with Timberlake's single Cry Me A River apparently an angry kiss-off to his former partner.
Spears focused on her career, ditching her songwriting team to work with stars such as R Kelly and Moby on her fourth album In The Zone in 2003.
She also courted the tabloids at the 2003 MTV Awards, where she locked lips with Madonna during a risque performance of Like A Virgin.
But perhaps more controversial was her union with childhood friend Jason Alexander, who she wed in a Las Vegas wedding chapel in January 2004.
The marriage was annulled after 55 hours, with Spears later explaining: "I really wanted to see what it was like to be married."
In July the same year she got engaged to her backing dancer Kevin Federline, just three months after meeting him.
The couple tied the knot in September 2004 and the couple had two children.
But they divorced in 2006 and many fans, who had barely concealed their contempt for Federline, thought the split would mark a re-birth for Spears - whose recording career had been on hold since the marriage.
It was not to be.
Spears' behaviour became more erratic and she embarked on a prolonged period of partying with other young celebrities, including heiress Paris Hilton.
Shortly before her divorce, Spears gave a rambling television interview, in which she tearfully proclaimed her marriage "awesome" and blamed the media for making her an "emotional wreck".
The shaved head shocked her fans and Spears went back into rehab, this time staying for a month.
When she attempted a live comeback, performing at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2007, she stumbled through a lip-synced performance and was universally panned.
As Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong put it at the time, it was like "watching a public execution".
Her personal life was in chaos. After a 10-month custody battle, Federline won sole custody of the couple's children Sean Preston and Jayden James.
Spears' parenting skills were called into question when a judge in Los Angeles ordered her to undergo drug and alcohol tests twice a week.
A former bodyguard claimed the singer was a danger to her children. She was charged with hit-and-run after an incident in an LA car park, and was dropped by her management company.
Her parents blamed manager Sam Lutfi, whom they accused of controlling their daughter's life by drugging her and taking control of her finances. He has denied the claims.
Despite the MTV incident, she continued to win musical plaudits. Her fifth album Blackout, largely created by a crack team of pop producers, was sonically adventurous and a hit with fans.
The turning point in her personal life is regarded as coming the following year, when her father Jamie took control over decisions regarding her personal life, including food, clothing and medical care and finances.
Restraining orders were obtained against Lutfi and Spears' ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib and her former manager Larry Rudolph was reinstated.
Her next album, Circus, included the track Womanizer, which became her first US number one single since ...Baby One More Time and an accompanying world tour earned $131m (£82m).
Despite a private and public rehabilitation, at the end of 2010, her lawyers failed to overturn the ruling that gave her father full control over her affairs.
But this April, her fiance and former agent Jason Trawick became her joint guardian - with her father's blessing.
Now 30, the X Factor deal should provide an opportunity for the star to show that she has put her troubled past behind her.
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