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The killing of an elderly couple in their home by a man with severe mental health issues could have been avoided, a report has found.
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By Niall McCrackenBBC News NI
Michael and Marjorie Cawdery, both 83, were attacked by Thomas Scott McEntee in Portadown, County Armagh, in 2017.
An independent panel, appointed by health authorities to investigate the deaths, has completed its work.
The Health and Social Care (HSC) system said it would learn from the "tragic incident".
The investigation found that McEntee's actions on the day the Cawderys died occurred in "the context of a significant deterioration" in his mental health.
It concluded that the deaths "could not have been predicted but could have been avoided".
A HSC spokesperson said it would work to reduce the risk of something similar happening in the future.
The couple's son-in-law Charles Little said it was "shattering" for the family to hear that the deaths were avoidable.
"We are also very angry that the Southern Health and Social Care Trust and the Health and Social Care Board have taken two years and two months to come to a conclusion that was obvious to the family by the end of June 2017," he added.
'Frenzied attack'
In June 2018, McEntee, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, was sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison.
The court case heard that authorities missed chances to take him off the streets.
McEntee had been causing a public nuisance in Warrenpoint, County Down, the day before the killings.
Police then took him to Newry train station, where McEntee said he planned to travel to Lurgan, County Armagh.
However, he did not board a train and instead broke into a garage in nearby Derrybeg Lane.
The next morning, police received reports about McEntee walking naked along the road between Bessbrook and Newry.
He was taken to the nearby Daisy Hill Hospital but was not admitted.
Instead he was taken to Craigavon Area Hospital in an ambulance, with a police escort.
While waiting to be assessed in the emergency department, he got up and left.
A short time later, McEntee was in the Cawdery's home, which is near the hospital.
They died in what the court case heard was a sustained, frenzied and gratuitous attack, which included the use of six knives.
'No defence'
An independent panel was appointed to conduct a level three serious adverse incident (SAI) review and the findings were recently shared with the Cawdery family.
Mr Little said his family was "broadly content" with the investigation's conclusion.
But he added mental health patients need to be handled "carefully".
"The fact that the incident could not be predicted is no defence - it is the very unpredictability of behaviour of those mental health patients who lead chaotic lifestyles that means they must be handled very carefully if they are to remain in the community."
The HSC said it would consider the report and involve the family in the process.
"We fully recognise the enormous distress that the families affected by this tragedy have suffered and we would unreservedly apologise for this," it added.
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"Extremism has no place in our schools," said Education Secretary Nicky Morgan.
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By Sean CoughlanEducation correspondent
She was speaking the day before schools face new requirements to play a bigger part in counter-extremism.
The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act places a legal duty on schools to "prevent people from being drawn into terrorism".
But NUT leader Christine Blower said: "Teachers cannot be turned into spies in the classroom."
Head teachers' leader Russell Hobby said schools should see the regulations in terms of "safeguarding" and not "surveillance".
"Recent events have shown the risks of young people being targeted by radical groups should not be underestimated," said Mrs Morgan.
"Schools and childcare providers already play an important role in protecting and safeguarding young people including from radicalisation and extremism," said the education secretary.
A telephone helpline has been offered for teachers, governors and other staff to raise concerns directly with the Department for Education.
The regulations, being introduced on 1 July, set out new responsibilities for "frontline workers" in public bodies, including schools, to challenge extremism.
It follows high profile cases in which young people have left the UK to join militant groups in Syria and Iraq.
'Non-violent extremism'
The counter-extremism requirements, applying to primary and secondary, state and independent schools, include warnings against "non-violent extremism".
"Being drawn into terrorism includes not just violent extremism but also non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists exploit," says the government guidance for schools.
Teachers will have to assess the risk of pupils being drawn into extremist ideologies.
There will be training for staff to identify children at risk and "to challenge extremist ideas".
Schools will have to ensure that pupils do not access extremist material online.
Mr Hobby, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers, said schools should "see their duties on radicalisation as another safeguarding duty".
"Schools are used to keeping their students safe from harm and this is a version of that. This means looking out for students rather than conducting surveillance on them.
"It means understanding the risk and acting proportionately. And it does mean reporting serious concerns so that any danger can be prevented before it materialises."
But Christine Blower, leader of the National Union of Teachers, said the "jury is out" on whether such regulations are the best way to get young people to "reject engagement with groups who advocate violence".
She said that the Prevent counter-extremism strategy was already causing "significant nervousness and confusion among teachers".
Ms Blower warned that concerns over extremism could "close down" the classroom debates which could encourage democracy and human rights.
The regulations set out a definition of extremism as "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs".
There are two sets of guidelines - one for England and Wales and another for Scotland.
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Two people have been killed and one injured during a third night of unrest in the US city of Kenosha, sparked by the police shooting of a black man.
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Jacob Blake, 29, was shot and injured by police as he leaned into his car on Sunday, with his children screaming.
Tuesday night's incident was believed to have involved protesters against Mr Blake's shooting and armed men guarding a petrol station.
President Donald Trump says federal officers will be sent to Kenosha.
The protests have at times turned violent, causing damage to property.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump announced that federal law enforcement and the National Guard would "restore LAW and ORDER".
"We will NOT stand for looting, arson, violence, and lawlessness on American streets. My team just got off the phone with Governor Evers who agreed to accept federal assistance (Portland should do the same!)," he said in a tweet.
Mr Blake is in hospital, and his mother said he was conscious. Mr Blake's lawyers say it will take "a miracle" for him to walk again.
In their statement, Kenosha Police said officials responded to "reports of shots being fired and multiple gunshot victims" in the city at about 23:45 on Tuesday (04:45 Wednesday GMT).
"The shooting resulted in two fatalities and a third gunshot victim was transported to a hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries," the statement said.
It added that the identities of the victims were still being determined and that no further details would be given at this time. An investigation has been opened.
Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth earlier told the New York Times that an investigation into the shootings would be focused on a group of men armed with guns outside a petrol station.
Footage shared online showed a man with a rifle being chased by a crowd before he fell to the ground and appeared to fire multiple rounds at them. Other video shows armed civilians, many dressed in military fatigues, congregating outside businesses they said they were protecting.
Previous protests have resulted in damage to government offices and private businesses, and there have been reports of vigilantes turning out to protect property.
A spokesman for the Wisconsin Professional Police Association told the BBC individuals and groups were exercising their own form of vigilantism because law enforcement was spread very thin across the city.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said on Tuesday he was sending more National Guard troops to the city amid the unrest.
How have the protests unfolded?
Within hours of Mr Blake's shooting on Sunday, hundreds of people had marched on Kenosha's police headquarters. Cars were later set alight, and police urged 24-hour businesses to consider closing because of "numerous" calls about armed robberies and shots being fired. A night-time curfew was imposed.
On Monday, Governor Evers called up the National Guard to help local police. The forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and smoke bombs, protesters said. Some demonstrators were seen attacking cars and property with baseball bats, Reuters reported.
On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters marched through the city. A small group threw fireworks and water bottles at police, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas.
In a message posted on Twitter, police urged people in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 on the south-western shore of Lake Michigan, to "stay off the streets".
Buildings and cars have been burned.
A state of emergency has also been declared in Wisconsin.
Protests have also spread to a number of other cities, including Portland, Oregon and in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd in May sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the US and globally.
The Toronto Raptors basketball team, who won last year's NBA championship, have discussed potentially boycotting an upcoming conference semifinal game in response to Mr Blake's shooting.
Player Norman Powell said the situation had gotten to a point where just saying "Black Lives Matter" was not enough.
"I think everybody's at the point of sitting up here and saying 'Black Lives Matter' and sitting up having discussions and Zoom calls... That's not getting the job done. Taking a knee for the anthem, that's not getting the job done."
What's the latest with Jacob Blake?
Lawyer Ben Crump told a press conference on Tuesday that doctors said Mr Blake had been paralysed by the shooting.
"His family believe in miracles, but the medical diagnosis right now is that he is paralysed and, because those bullets severed his spinal cord and shattered some of his vertebrae, it is going to take a miracle for Jacob Blake Jr to ever walk again," he said.
The 29-year-old, shot as his young sons sat in the car, was also left with holes in his stomach, an arm injury and damage to his kidney and liver. Most of his colon and small intestine had to be removed, his lawyers told reporters.
His mother Julia Jackson told the press conference her son had been "fighting for his life", but said if he "knew what was going on as far as that goes, the violence and the destruction, he would be very unpleased".
Mr Blake's shooting comes as the US grapples with the treatment of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement, as well as wider questions about racism in society, since the death of George Floyd.
In her speech, Ms Jackson addressed racism directly and called for "healing".
"Do you understand what is going to happen when we fall - because a house that is against each other cannot stand."
What do we know about the shooting?
Police say they were responding to a domestic incident when they went to the site of Sunday's shooting but have given few other details. So far it is unclear who called the police, how many officers were involved, and what happened before the shooting.
Footage of the incident shows Mr Blake opening the door and leaning into the car, at which point one officer grabs his shirt and opens fire. Seven shots can be heard in the video, as witnesses shout and scream.
Mr Blake's fiancée Laquisha Booker, said the children - who witnessed everything as they sat in the back of the car - were screaming as their father was shot.
Lawyers for Mr Blake said he had been trying to "de-escalate a domestic incident". Witnesses said the same to local media.
Court records show there was an open arrest warrant against Mr Blake on sexual assault and domestic abuse charges but police have not said if officers were aware of this when they responded to the call on Sunday.
Wisconsin's Department of Justice is investigating the incident in Kenosha, while the officers involved have been placed on administrative leave. A petition calling for them to be charged has garnered tens of thousands of signatures.
Mr Blake's father has said he does not have confidence in the investigation.
"Anybody that is white, that is doing an investigation about a black young man that was shot seven times in his back, and haven't come up with an answer or a comment at this point, is not welcome," he told reporters.
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Plans for a waste incinerator in Derby have been rejected by an inspector after an appeal.
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The Sinfin Lane plant would have been used to burn 190,000 tonnes of waste a year from Derbyshire.
The inspector ruled the plant would have had a negative impact on traffic, air quality and people's living conditions.
Resource Recovery Solutions (RRS) was appealing against an earlier rejection from Derby City Council in 2009.
Health concerns
The company had proposed a waste treatment centre with a recycling hall, power generation and export facility.
About 85 people objected to the plans at a public hearing, while only RRS spoke in favour of the plans.
Although inspector Ruth MacKenzie ruled the plant would not have a "harmful visual impact" on the area - despite a 55m (180ft) stack - she said it would have a negative impact on traffic.
She also said emissions from the plant and local residents' concerns about the impact on their health were factors in turning down the appeal.
RRS said it was disappointed as the plan provided a "good, long-term solution to deal with all the household rubbish produced in Derby and Derbyshire".
Derbyshire County Councillor John Allsop said the county still needs a waste treatment facility to deal with the rubbish that cannot be recycled or composted.
"This decision means council tax payers will face extra costs in landfill tax while we develop other proposals."
He said the county council will work with both the city council and RRS to look at other alternatives to the Sinfin project.
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Three men and a teenager have been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of a 16-year-old boy.
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The boy, named locally as Tyler Thompson, was found injured in a busy residential street in Leicester after reports of a fight in the area.
He was taken to hospital on Tuesday evening but later died.
Three men aged 29, 34 and 35 were arrested along with an 18-year-old, who was taken to hospital.
Police were called to a fight involving a group of men in Freeman Road North, next to Humberstone Park, at about 19:50 GMT on Tuesday where they found the injured boy.
He was taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary where he later died.
The arrested men remain in police custody and a forensic examination is currently being carried out in the street and at a house in nearby Broad Avenue.
A police spokesman said they would not give details of whether any weapon may have been involved.
Tributes and flowers have been left close to the scene of the incident and friends on social media expressed sadness at his death.
One card, left with a bunch of white lilies, read: "RIP Tyler. Thoughts are with your family. You're with the angels now. xxxxx"
Aliyyah Khan, 16, from Evington, Leicester, said she had known Tyler for seven years and described him as a "really nice guy".
"I was so shocked when I heard he had died. It's just heartbreaking," she said.
Residents on the street described their shock at the news.
A woman who lives near Freeman Road North said: "Sixteen is no age to die. He hasn't had half his life yet."
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A female judge's warning that drunk women are putting themselves at greater risk of rape was "victim-blaming", a police commissioner has said.
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Judge Lindsey Kushner QC said women were entitled to "drink themselves into the ground" but their "disinhibited behaviour" could put them in danger.
The remarks would stop victims speaking out, Northumbria PCC Vera Baird said.
But the judge said she did not think it was wrong for a judge "to beg women to take actions to protect themselves".
Francis Fitzgibbon, Criminal Bar Association chairman, said it was "sensible" for women "to be educated to know there are predatory men out there".
Judge Kushner, 64, made the courtroom plea as she jailed a man for six years for raping an 18-year-old woman in Manchester last year.
The mother of two, who has sat as a senior circuit judge since 2002, acknowledged judges have been criticised for "putting more emphasis on what girls should and shouldn't do than on the act and the blame to be apportioned to rapists".
"There is absolutely no excuse and a woman can do with her body what she wants and a man will have to adjust his behaviour accordingly."
But she added "as a woman judge" it would "be remiss" if she did not plead with women to protect themselves from predatory men who ''gravitate'' towards drunken females.
'Terrible shame'
But former Labour MP Ms Baird told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "When somebody is raped they feel guilt and shame and they find it very hard to report it.
"If a judge has just said to them 'Well, if you drank you are more likely to get raped, we are not likely to believe you and you have been disinhibited so you've rather brought it on yourself' then that guilt is just going to get worse."
Ms Baird, a former solicitor general and ex-defence barrister, said the judge should have given advice to help women stay safe instead of implying "it's your fault for having attracted him in the first place".
"This looks like victim-blaming and they (organisations such as Rape Crisis) are worried that, yet again, it is going to become harder to get women to make reports," she said.
"That's a terrible shame."
One rape victim told the BBC the judge's comments were "100% victim-blaming".
The woman, who blogs under the name Maria Marcello, said: "It also seems to be an inherently selfish viewpoint - 'looking after yourself' isn't going to make a rapist stop raping, even if it keeps you safe for a night.
"Also in my case, I was practically as safe as I could have been - I was drunk, sure, but I was in my own house and had people I knew around."
Yvonne Traynor, chief executive of Rape Crisis South East, said: "As a judge and a woman she should know better.
"The only person who is responsible for rape, is the rapist.
"Women are yet again being blamed for rape."
Rachel Krys, co-director of End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: "What this judge is saying is exactly the kind of thing that deters women from reporting assaults.
"Women understandably think that they will not be believed, or will be blamed for their own attack if they've had a drink."
But Mr Fitzgibbon, Criminal Bar Association chairman, said he didn't "see it in any way as being victim-blaming in this case".
"Of course, rape is a particularly horrible crime and it must be intensely difficult for anyone - man or woman - who has been raped to tell strangers about what's happened to them."
He added: "It's unusual for a judge to make comments like this I suppose because it was her last day in court the reins were off a bit… she obviously feels strongly that young drunk women are becoming rape victims and she wants to do something about it."
Analysis by Danny Shaw, BBC home affairs correspondent
Judge Kushner's plea to women to protect themselves was strongly - but carefully - worded: she was emphatically not blaming them for an attack but warning them that when drunk they're more vulnerable.
Other judges who've stepped into this tricky territory haven't always framed their remarks so delicately.
Judge Mary Jane Mowat's comment in 2014 that "the rape conviction statistics will not improve until women stop getting so drunk" was designed to highlight a point Judge Kushner also made - that victims are less likely to believed if they've had a lot of alcohol - but she made it sound as though women were responsible for rapists getting off.
But even more insensitive was the comment made by Mr Justice Leonard in 1987 when he declared that the trauma suffered by Ealing vicarage rape victim Jill Saward "had not been so great". He later apologised.
Judge Kushner jailed factory worker Ricardo Rodrigues-Fortes-Gomes, 19, for raping a woman he met in a Burger King in Manchester city centre last year.
Manchester Crown Court heard he ignored his 18-year-old victim's screams as he attacked her on a canal bank.
A witness heard the teenager, who had been drinking lager and vodka as well as inhaling the party drug amyl nitrite, begging Rodrigues-Fortes-Gomes to stop.
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The approach to the Dartford Crossing has been dubbed Britain's worst stretch of motorway by an MP who has criticised the new cashless payment system.
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Conservative MP for Dartford Gareth Johnson told Parliament the free-flow system which replaced toll booths on the Kent side had led to traffic jams.
Leader of the House Chris Grayling MP said Highways England needed to deliver a better set-up.
Highways England said journey times had "improved significantly".
Nigel Gray, project director of Dart Charge, the new payment system, said drivers had also been given more flexibility about how and when they paid the crossing charge.
He added that a new Traffic Safety System was introduced on the northbound carriageway in June and staff were "working flat out to fine-tune" it to ensure "optimum performance and to maximise traffic flow".
But, in calling for a debate on the issue, Mr Johnson said the new system had "clearly failed to live up to expectations".
He said the residents of Dartford were left at the mercy of any incident that took place at the crossing.
'Get skates on'
Mr Grayling said he understood the knock-on effect for constituents.
"I have to say it is frustrating it has not worked better sooner because the free-flow should be a dramatic improvement on what was there before and it's disappointing that hasn't yet happened."
He said he was aware Highways England understood the problem but said they needed to "get their skates on" to tackle it.
"We cannot leave both that important part of the M25 and the residents of Dartford in a position where things are not best yet."
When the plans were drawn up, Highways England said it would reduce congestion and ease traffic flow.
The new payment system, which saw barriers removed and motorists charged through number plate recognition cameras, came into force on 30 November.
Users complained about delays and failures of the computerised system for setting up accounts to pay the new Dart Charge, but Highways England said they were "teething problems".
Related Internet Links
Dart Charge
Highways England
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Eight members of staff at a bar in Wakefield have tested positive for coronavirus.
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Truth, on Westgate, asked all its staff to take a test after one person showed symptoms last week.
A spokesman said the bar had been deep cleaned and remained open, and anyone who had been in contact with the staff affected was isolating for 14 days.
A pub in nearby Pontefract has also confirmed two cases among its staff, and has temporarily closed.
Wakefield Council said it was working with Public Health England to manage the outbreak at Truth, which only opened on 4 July.
More stories from around Yorkshire
Director of public health Anna Hartley said: "We are aware eight cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed at Truth bar in Wakefield.
"The business is working closely with us, alongside Public Health England, to take swift action to help limit any further potential spread.
"If anyone is concerned or displaying symptoms - of a high temperature, a new, continuous cough or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste - please self-isolate as soon as possible and get a test.
"Anyone deemed a close contact of one of the positive cases will be contacted via the NHS test and trace programme and advised to self-isolate and get tested."
The Ponty Tavern, on Cornmarket, confirmed two members of staff had tested positive, writing on Facebook it had closed pending advice from public health officials.
It said anyone who visited between 20:00 BST on 14 August and 02:00 on 15 August should be contacted by track and trace officials shortly.
Anyone displaying symptoms should book a Covid-19 test, it added.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or send video here.
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McDonald's is to join a growing list of fast food restaurants selling fully vegan meals in the UK.
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McDonald's said its Veggie Dippers meal - including vegan nuggets served with chips and a soft drink - will launch in the UK on 2 January.
It follows the likes of KFC and Greggs in introducing vegan options.
Animal rights activists Peta said a vegan meal was "the very definition of a happy meal".
However, it said it would continue to campaign for McDonald's to bring its McVegan burger, which is available in Finland and Sweden, to the UK.
McDonald's new dippers are made of rice, red peppers, tomato pesto and split peas, fried in breadcrumbs.
The product will be fried separately from products containing meat, a spokesman said, and served with McDonald's UK chips, which are vegan-friendly.
The move comes as restaurants are capitalising on increasing demand from UK customers for vegetarian and vegan food options.
McDonald's said in the last 12 months it had seen an "80% uplift" in customers ordering vegetarian options.
The firm is the latest fast food chain to offer vegan products. Famously, Greggs launched a vegan sausage roll at the beginning of the year which it credited with boosting sales.
Other chains with vegan options include Frankie & Benny's, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Nando's, Papa John's and Pizza Hut.
'Encouraging consumers'
The Humane Society International UK, which campaigns for animal welfare, said McDonald's move would help veganism go mainstream.
"When big global brands like McDonalds start serving up vegan food, it can have a huge meat-reduction impact overall," director Claire Bass told the BBC.
Peta director Elisa Allen said: "A vegan meal - one that doesn't require killing - is the very definition of a happy meal.
"We'll continue to encourage consumers to vote with their wallets and choose vegan to help spare pigs, cows, and chickens a short, miserable life and a violent death."
A survey by Mintel in 2018 found people giving a variety of reasons for eating less meat, including for its perceived health benefits, to try to lose weight, and because of animal welfare and environmental concerns.
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The body representing Welsh councils wants clarity from the first minister on plans to merge local authorities.
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The Williams Commission, set up by the Welsh government, published a report in January recommending the 22 councils should be merged to between 10 and 12.
The report also called for cross-party agreement on the way forward by Easter but it has not happened and the Welsh government is targeting the summer.
But the Welsh Local Government Association wants a clear timescale.
"The longer this drags on the more problematic it gets," the WLGA's chief executive Steve Thomas told Sunday Politics Wales.
"It seems to me that we're in a position where the Williams proposals are essentially contested by the political parties across Wales.
"They are contested within local government and that inevitably has slowed things down.
"I think we now do need a very clear timescale for how the report's going to be implemented.
"We've got 150,000 employees in Welsh local government, we can't just have the sword of Damocles hanging over them for the next five or six years.
"I think the idea that this was going to be signed, sealed and delivered by Easter in time for our eggs was all very optimistic."
As part of a wider review of how public services work in Wales, the Williams Commission said change should happen "quickly and decisively".
'Disappointed'
Former leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh assembly Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth is a member of the commission and said he was "disappointed the momentum seems to have been lost" since the fanfare which accompanied the report's publication.
First Minister Carwyn Jones insists he wants an agreement between the parties on a post-reorganisation map of Welsh councils but Plaid Cymru's local government spokesman says that is unlikely.
"What he wants is a Labour party map," said Plaid's Rhodri Glyn Thomas.
"We can't be put in a position where we are being asked to sign up to something which is agreed within the Labour Party and which happens to suit the Labour Party."
Asked whether the Mr Jones's aim of cross-party agreement on a new map can be met by the summer, he added: "I doubt that very much at the moment."
A Welsh government spokesperson said: "While it is important we move swiftly it is essential that we take the time necessary to get this right.
"Ongoing cross-party discussions are an important part of this process in order for us to work towards a consensus."
Sunday Politics Wales, BBC One Wales, Sunday at 11:00 BST
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German officials are urging action to tackle a surge of asylum seekers from the Balkans, including reintroducing visas and declaring more of the migrants' home countries to be "safe".
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Pressure has grown in recent days after attacks on migrant hostels and a huge rise in asylum claims this year.
In a Dresden suburb, the car of Michael Richter, a councillor who had been helping refugees, was blown up.
There are calls now for Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro to be declared "safe".
Since Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia were declared "safe" in December, the rise in asylum seekers from those countries was only about 12%, Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said.
However, the numbers from Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro had soared by more than 500%, the BAMF said.
A "safe" classification makes it easier for the authorities to send back asylum seekers, because it is then harder for the applicants to prove that they are victims of persecution on political, religious or ethnic grounds.
A BAMF spokesperson, quoted by German media, said reintroducing a visa requirement could also help stem the influx from the Balkans.
Germany saw a surge in asylum applicants from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia after visa requirements were lifted for those countries, the BAMF reported.
However, most EU countries - including Germany - adhere to the EU's Schengen rules, which allow unrestricted travel in Europe. New visa limits would require a decision at EU level, by qualified majority voting.
The EU removed visas in order to help integrate ex-Yugoslav states - recovering from war - with the rest of Europe.
Hungary is also struggling with a surge in Balkan migrants - many of them Roma (Gypsies) fleeing grinding poverty in Kosovo.
The Balkan migration pressures dominated a special regional summit in Baden-Wuerttemberg state, in south-west Germany, on Monday.
The state's Green prime minister, Winfried Kretschmann, voiced cautious support for the "safe country" proposal - something conservative opposition politicians called for.
Baden-Wuerttemberg has increased the capacity of migrant accommodation to 9,000, to cope with the influx. But the number of asylum seekers is expected to reach 50,000 this year - double last year's figure.
Nationally, Germany expects to have about 450,000 asylum applicants this year. In the first half of this year 180,000 asylum claims were registered - double the number for the corresponding period of 2014.
An official estimate, reported by the Tagesschau news website, says German spending on asylum seekers will reach at least €5bn (£3.5bn; $5.5bn) this year, up from €2.2bn in 2014.
The Bavarian Prime Minister, Horst Seehofer of the conservative CSU, said the regions "need a massive increase in funds, the federal government has to do significantly more" to handle the burden of asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, the number of attacks on migrant hostels in Germany so far this year - 202 - outstrips the number for the whole of last year (198), the German Interior Ministry reports. Most of the attacks were blamed on far right, anti-immigration militants.
The anti-immigration Pegida movement held a 2,000-strong rally in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday night.
Pegida opposes a temporary refugee centre - a new tent city - set up last week in the city's Friedrichstadt district. In recent days, there have been fights between far-right activists and refugee supporters in Dresden.
In Mainstockheim, Bavaria, 20 refugees were evacuated from a hostel after scuffles broke out with a group of local people.
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MPs are trying to forge a Brexit consensus as they debate and vote on alternatives to the government's EU withdrawal agreement.
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In an unprecedented show of strength by the Commons, MPs are wresting control of the parliamentary timetable from the government for a few hours to consider a range of other options and try to break the current deadlock.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has chosen eight proposals, out of more than a dozen put forward by MPs, to be debated.
It will then be up to MPs, when they fill in their ballot papers, to express an opinion on each of them.
Any that secure the support of more than 50% of MPs could go forward to be debated again on Monday as Parliament tries to convince the government, and just as importantly the EU, that it has an alternative solution.
Here's a brief rundown of proposals up for consideration and who's backing them.
No-deal Brexit
The general idea: It's a very straightforward motion: "That this House agrees that the UK shall leave the EU on 12 April 2019 without a deal."
The key bits: It seeks to ensure that there will not be further delay to Brexit.
Who's backing it? Conservative Brexiteers John Baron, Sir David Amess, Martin Vickers and Stephen Metcalfe
A customs union
The general idea: At least three motions were being circulated around Westminster which argue for the UK to negotiate a permanent customs union with the EU. The Speaker has selected the most straightforward one, tabled by veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke.
The key bits: It does not argue for the UK to remain in the EU's current customs union. It says that any EU withdrawal agreement, and declaration on the future trading relationship, "must include, as a minimum, a commitment to negotiate a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU".
Who's backing it? The cross-party proposal has the backing of a smattering of senior Conservative and Labour MPs, including Ken Clarke, Oliver Letwin, Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper.
Labour's plan
The general idea: Aside from the customs union, the opposition's motion unarguably points in the direction of a "softer Brexit" while, the party insists, still honouring the result of the 2016 referendum. Labour argues that its proposal is negotiable with the EU - something its detractors contest.
The key bits: The motion calls for "close alignment" with the single market, underpinned by shared institutions and obligations, and for the UK to be in harmony with laws on workers' rights and environmental protections. It seeks guarantees over the UK's continued participation in educational, scientific and cultural programmes and access to security and law enforcement schemes, including the European Arrest Warrant.
Who backing it? It is being put forward by party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer. But it is unlikely to attract much support from other parties, particularly opposition parties who favour another referendum.
Common Market 2.0
The general idea: Also known as "Norway plus", this motion takes as its starting point the Scandinavian country's relationship with the EU and seeks to build on it. It derives its name from the common market, the vernacular name for the European Economic Community (EEC) at the time the UK joined it in 1973.
The key bits: The UK would reapply to join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which it left when it signed up to the EEC. If successful, it would join what is known as the "EEA pillar" of the EFTA agreement. In essence, the UK would not leave the European Economic Area, to which it currently belongs as an EU member, and would continue to participate in the single market. It envisages a "comprehensive customs arrangement" with the EU until alternative arrangements are put in place and would maintain freedom of movement, albeit with conditions.
Who's backing it? It is the brainchild of Tory MP Nick Boles, who has been championing it for nearly 18 months. It has the support of Brexiteer Tory Andrew Percy and a number of Labour MPs, including Stephen Kinnock. The Labour leadership has indicated it will order its MPs to vote for this, increasing its chances of success.
EFTA/EEA
The general idea: This is similar in some respects to Common Market 2.0 but with a number of important differences. While the UK would rejoin EFTA and stay within the EEA, it makes clear the UK's rights and obligations would be enforceable by the domestic courts, not the European Court of Justice.
The key bits: It rejects any kind of customs union with the EU after Brexit and says the Irish backstop must be replaced with alternative arrangements to preserve the territorial integrity of the UK.
Who's backing it? It has been drawn up by George Eustice, who quit as a minister last month to vote against delaying Brexit. It is largely a Tory affair but does draw support from "soft Brexiteers" like Nicky Morgan and Jeremy Lefroy and members of the Brexit Delivery Group of MPs.
Confirmatory referendum
The general idea: This one is pretty straightforward. It says Parliament cannot ratify or implement any agreement on the UK's withdrawal and future relationship "unless and until they have been approved by the people of the UK in a confirmatory public ballot".
The key bits: It basically requires Parliament to withhold its consent for any deal until it is approved in a referendum. Unlike Labour's motion, it does not specify what deal could be voted on or whether there should be an option to remain, thereby differentiating itself from the People's Vote campaign.
Who's backing it? This was known around Westminster as the Kyle-Wilson amendment, as it's the idea of Labour MPs Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, but it has been tabled by Labour MP Dame Margaret Beckett. They have a long list of Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Independent Group supporters, and a smattering of Tory rebels.
Revoking Article 50
The general idea: This requires the government to stop Brexit in its tracks if the UK gets to within days of its scheduled departure from the EU and the necessary legislation implementing any withdrawal deal has not been approved.
The key bits: Talk of revoking Article 50 - the legal process by which the UK is leaving the EU - has been all the rage in the past week, with a petition backing the move attracting more than five million signatures. This motion obliges the government to act if the UK reaches "the penultimate House of Commons sitting day before exit day" and no law implementing Brexit has been passed. In such a situation, MPs would be asked to vote on a no-deal exit and if they rejected that, Article 50 would be revoked.
Who's backing it? The prime mover is the Scottish lawyer and SNP MP Joanna Cherry, who was behind a legal challenge earlier this year to establish whether the UK could unilaterally revoke Article 50. Its supporters include Lib Dem leader Vince Cable and members of the Independent Group of MPs.
Malthouse compromise Plan B
The general idea: This looks a bit like the "managed no-deal" plan that was being touted by some cabinet Brexiteers. It would see an extended transition period to December 2021 to allow time to prepare for departure on World Trade Organisation terms or a revised version of the withdrawal agreement.
The key bits: It would seek to reduce the £39bn "divorce bill" to the smallest amount possible - and introduce a "standstill period" with no tariffs and no new barriers to trade with the EU while talks are ongoing.
The first part of the plan, Malthouse Plan A, which called for the current withdrawal agreement to be implemented with the "backstop" for the Irish border replaced by alternative arrangements, which had cross-party support, was not selected for debate Commons Speaker John Bercow.
Who's backing it? Mostly Conservative Brexiteers, including Marcus Fysh, Steve Baker and Priti Patel.
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Around 5,000 women treated at Welsh hospitals are being contacted after a healthcare worker infected two patients with the Hepatitis C virus.
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The retired obstetrics and gynaecology worker is known to have passed on the infection to the patients at a Welsh hospital between 1984 and 2003.
The individual mainly worked at Caerphilly District Miners Hospital.
But they also spent time at Wrexham Maelor Hospital and the old East Glamorgan Hospital near Pontypridd.
The member of staff, who conducted operations, worked at numerous hospitals around the UK in the 1970s and 1980s and those patients are also being contacted.
They are all now reviewing their records and contacting those who may have been treated.
However, public health officials said that the risk of transmission was low.
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which covers the former Gwent area, said it had been made aware that a worker involved in the treatment of thousands of patients had Hepatitis C, which can lead to inflammation of the liver.
It said the virus was known to have been transmitted from the worker to two patients between May 1984 and July 2003.
A review of clinical records has taken place, and obstetric and gynaecology patients who have or may have been treated by the retired healthcare worker will be offered a blood test for Hepatitis C as a precautionary measure.
Some 5,000 patients, who are all women, who have or may have been treated by this person at the three Welsh hospitals will receive a letter and will be asked to ring a dedicated helpline to arrange an appointment in a specialist nurse clinic.
The worker was based mainly at Caerphilly District Miners' Hospital - which closed in 2011 - for seven years between May 1984 and July 2003.
But they also spent time at the old East Glamorgan Hospital between 28 May 1984 and 17 July 1984 and Wrexham Maelor Hospital between 15 May 1978 and 27 June 1978.
Testing offered
Dr Gill Richardson, director of public health at the Aneurin Bevan health board, said transmission could only happen if the healthcare worker had an injury causing them to bleed while treating a patient.
"As a precautionary measure, patients who may have been at risk of being exposed to the virus have been identified and will receive a letter to attend a clinic so that we can ensure they are offered testing," she said.
"Specialist nurse clinics have been set up and we will do all we can to support patients during this time.
"As many as one in 250 people carry Hepatitis C infection and it does not automatically lead to health problems.
"Treatment can help clear the infection in up to 80% of cases, which is why it's important to identify anyone who may be at risk of having been infected so treatment can be started if necessary."
An appointments helpline will be open from Wednesday, from 08:00 to 20:00 BST seven days a week.
Specialist clinics will start taking place from Friday, 13 September and patients who attend for testing will receive results in approximately two weeks.
If Hepatitis C is left untreated, the infection can cause chronic liver disease and, very rarely, cancer of the liver.
It is transmitted through blood-to-blood contact and, very rarely, through sexual intercourse.
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It is now more than five years since the notoriously brutal rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) stopped carrying out atrocities in northern Uganda.
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Their diminished forces, led by Joseph Kony who has been subject of a recent viral online campaign highlighting his activities, still spread fear in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and occasionally South Sudan.
The more than 20 years of war in northern Uganda has left a terrible legacy of poverty and disease but at least there is peace.
The BBC's East Africa correspondent, Will Ross, met four survivors of the insurgency in Kitgum district.
Geoffrey Obita - attacked by LRA
Geoffrey Obita first spoke to the BBC in 2003, using another name for his protection, at the Catholic Mission hospital in Kitgum after he had been rushed there on the back of a bicycle from his village. He had been attacked by LRA rebels who falsely accusing him of being a government soldier.
The rebels sat on his chest and pinned down his limbs as one of them hacked off his ears, lips and fingers with a knife. In agony he begged them to kill him. Nine years later, he runs a small stall on the outskirts of Kitgum town:
Every day I come here and I try to earn a living but it's not easy.
I'm struggling for my three children, Joseph, Isaac and Emmanuel.
I want them to get a high level of education so they can cater for themselves.
Here in Uganda without an education there's no meaningful future.
I was doing well at secondary school when I was attacked in 2003.
I tried to finish school but my problem was writing was difficult because of what they did to me.
I couldn't hold a pen.
When I was recovering in hospital the boy who had cut me was also admitted - he had been shot in an attack.
At first I was angry to see him and I thought of revenge.
'Unable to farm'
But later I realised he had been abducted by the rebels and was forced to do what he did so I forgave him and now relations between us are ok.
He may still fear revenge but I have forgiven him.
When I was better I started a small bakery in Kitgum and then I set up this shop selling food items like rice and salt and sugar and drinks.
But business has not been going well recently.
Today, four-year-old Isaac was sent away from nursery school because I haven't been able to pay the school fees.
Many people survive by farming the land around here but because of my hands I'm unable to dig the fields.
I've had no help with my disability.
Taking responsibility is not easy but I'm trying.
Genesis Atube - former LRA commander
Genesis Atube was known as "Commander Jolly Joe" when he was in the LRA. Countless testimonies from those who escaped from the LRA say he was responsible for leading raids in Uganda during the early 2000s in which large numbers of children were abducted. He denies this.
He escaped from the LRA after being injured in a battle:
When I came back from the bush in 2005 life was not easy at home.
People were accusing me of abducting and killing their children - something I didn't do.
When they started accusing me I had to relocate from Kitgum to Gulu District where I stayed for two years.
People are still very angry with me - that's why I can't easily relate to them in the villages.
That's why I stopped drinking these locally made beers.
I only take beers from the factory because I fear at any time they can poison me.
When I had enough money I came back to Kitgum to set up this bicycle repair shop.
Here many people don't know about my history and being by the roadside many people just bring their bicycles when they are passing.
'Reconciliation necessary'
But the problem is at home - that's when I face many difficulties from the community members.
In the 1980s I was a lieutenant in the UNLA [the Uganda National Liberation Army that was defeated by President Yoweri Museveni's guerrilla forces in 1986].
I didn't apply to LRA leader Joseph Kony to be one of his soldiers, I was abducted.
In the LRA I was given the rank of 2nd lieutenant.
I'm very happy that there is peace now.
Sometimes I ride my bicycle right up to Gulu and then come back.
Reconciliation is one of the most important things to be done but I'm not sure what the government position and the LRA position is.
Even now as I talk I left one of my children in the bush so reconciliation should be done so people can live in peace.
Rebecca - former LRA abductee
Rebecca was abducted from her school in northern Uganda in 1996 and was held by the LRA for three years, experiencing appalling atrocities. Now 26, she is still frightened of the LRA and did not want any photos taken of her. After escaping she has worked hard to fulfil a dream, which is about to come true:
It has been hard because missing three years is a long time and what I went through was somehow traumatic and so it disorganised my mind.
When I went back to school after three years I'd forgotten almost all I had learnt.
I had forgotten how to write so it was not so easy.
I was so excited to enter university as I didn't expect to make it here.
Although in my mind I had wanted to study and be a success, on the other hand I saw darkness coming as finance was a problem.
'Miraculous meeting'
I had to believe that I could make it.
Thanks to a miraculous meeting, someone offered to pay my school fees and they kept their promise.
I am so grateful.
I had this inspiration to become a doctor because of my past life experience - the years I went through due to the LRA war in the north.
I saw many people affected by ill health in the north and among the abducted people were dying.
One thing which inspired me to study medicine was the death of my mum. She died of a heart attack.
But I was wondering if something had been done in the right way at that time would she have survived.
In a few weeks time I'm graduating as a doctor.
I am so excited I can't wait for the day I make the oath of becoming a doctor and I'm putting on that gown - I think I'll be so excited. It is a dream come true.
After my graduation I will dedicate my life to work.
I will go to the north and give them my service because currently there is crisis - there are very few medical personnel and people are really dying because of that so I'd be grateful to work."
Helen Amony Omono - school teacher
During the conflict, Helen Amony Omono struggled to protect the children under her care. In 2002 she was the head teacher at a school in a village that came under attack by the LRA.
She is now head at Pajimo Primary School where she no longer has to worry about security:
There is a lot of hunger to learn here.
We have seen the results improve slightly with the peace.
There is more concentration in class compared to those days when there was a lot of trauma and fear especially when they heard gunshots because the children feared they'd be abducted.
When the war was on the majority of the students were displaced and lived in the camp.
Some were born in the camp so they hadn't known what village life was like.
Life there was not good - people were congested, rebels targeted the camps and there was a lot of indiscipline and sickness.
Many people died from cholera, hepatitis and other diseases including HIV/Aids.
When there was abduction the children would fear coming to school.
At 10:00 people would begin walking in groups but by 15:00 there would be no movement because of the risk of abduction or being killed.
'Want normal lives'
But these days it's ok - people can even walk at night as there is peace.
Today many students want to join the school.
Our first class, P1, has 141 students. There are two teachers manning the class doing all the activities together.
Around the school there are signs promoting peace: "Talk peace listen to peace and discuss peace."
We have always been talking to the children about peace and what they can do to bring about peace.
If anything bad happens or there is a problem they should discuss so people can live in total peace.
We pray that no more conflicts come around so our children can begin living normal lives.
We no longer want to live a traumatised life.
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Russian protesters defying a ban on unapproved rallies have faced off with supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow city centre.
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Protesters chanted slogans against the ruling party as the Putin loyalists beat drums and chanted "Putin, Russia".
Police arrested at least 250 protesters, including veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov.
A rally on Monday against alleged fraud in Sunday's parliamentary elections was Moscow's biggest protest in years.
Mr Putin has played down losses by his party, United Russia, which won but with just under 50% of the vote, a sharp drop in its support.
Correspondents say the result reflects Mr Putin's declining popularity ahead of his bid for the Russian presidency in March.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton acknowledged the election was well-prepared and administered, but said reports of procedural violations "are however of serious concern".
She pointed specifically to an alleged "lack of media impartiality, a lack of separation between party and state, and the harassments of independent monitoring attempts".
Observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had earlier said the election was slanted in favour of the United Russia party.
Navalny jailed
Live video from Moscow's Triumphal Square, on a major road artery close to the Kremlin, showed crowds of rival demonstrators shouting slogans on Tuesday evening.
Eyewitnesses said up to 500 protesters took part, facing a much larger group of Putin supporters from United Russia and the Nashi youth movement.
Footage from the scene was broadcast over the internet by the Russian citizen journalism outlet Ridus (audio in Russian), and was still being followed by at least 30,000 viewers hours after the rally.
According to an Associated Press reporter, two fireworks were thrown at a crowd of Putin supporters. It was not immediately clear who had thrown them or if they had caused any injuries, the agency said, correcting an initial reference to "fire bombs".
Police said that at least 250 people were detained, while Russian news agencies reported that around 200 protesters were arrested in Russia's second city St Petersburg and 25 in the southern city of Roston-on-Don.
Correspondents say Mr Nemtsov and other protesters were hauled off to waiting police vehicles. Mr Nemstov was reportedly later released.
Monday's protest in Moscow drew several thousand people and police made at least 300 arrests. At least 50 arrests were made in St Petersburg.
Two of those arrested in Moscow were well-known anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin, leader of the Solidarity party. They were jailed for 15 days on Tuesday for their part in the protests.
Their arrest was heavily tweeted by Russian bloggers, who circulated photos of Mr Navalny and others in custody.
"There is not a single doubt that my case is under the special control of the party of crooks and thieves," he told reporters in court ahead of being charged, referring to United Russia.
'Inevitable losses'
The Russian interior ministry has denied any extra security measures in Moscow, saying that police and troop movements in the city were a "rotation".
Its press service told Interfax that 51,500 police including 2,000 interior troops had been on a state of alert since 1 December, as part of election preparations.
"Statements that extra forces are being drafted into Moscow do not correspond to reality," it said.
Speaking to United Russia officials in Moscow earlier on Tuesday, Mr Putin suggested that electoral losses were inevitable for any party in power.
"Yes, there were losses and they are inevitable," the prime minister and former two-term president said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
"They are inevitable for any political force, especially for one which, not for the first year, bears the brunt of responsibility for the situation in the country."
Mr Putin also rejected the accusation by Mr Navalny and others that his party was especially corrupt.
"This is a label applied not to a specific political party but to authorities [in general]," he said, promising to tackle the issue.
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New rules aimed at reducing the price gap between using a mobile phone at home and elsewhere in the EU have been proposed.
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The European Commission wants to cut "roaming" costs - when calls are made or received, text messages sent or data downloaded when travelling in Europe.
New, lower price caps could come into force in stages to July 2014.
By then, mobile phone customers would also be able to separate their national and overseas contracts and shop around.
They would still be able to use their same phone number, but could switch to a separate operator when in another country for a cheaper deal for surfing the web or downloading music or photos.
At present, mobile users can buy a Sim card local to the country in which they are travelling, but this means they are on a different phone number to usual.
The Commission hopes that more "virtual" operators, which do not have their own networks, would enter the roaming market. The extra competition would then be expected to push down prices.
'Outrageous margins'
In the meantime, proposals have been published that would extend the level of price caps on calls and text messages for those travelling in Europe.
Current EU roaming price caps will expire at the end of June 2012. The authorities fear that without putting more plans in place, prices could pick up to pre-2007 levels.
For example, there is currently a cap of 35 euro cents (31p) a minute on calls made, excluding VAT. The proposals would see this falling steadily to 24 cents (22p), by July 2014.
There is currently no cap per megabyte on downloading data, but this would be limited to 50 cents (45p) per megabyte by July 2014, under the Commission's plans.
One megabyte is the equivalent of downloading 100 e-mails without attachments, less than an hour of internet browsing, one minute of downloading music or a few seconds of video downloading.
A more general cap is in place at present to avoid so-called bill shocks. Operators are compelled to place a 50 euro (£45) cap on users' data consumption in order to avoid unexpectedly high bills. Customers who wish to continue their data roaming can request to have the limit removed.
"This proposal tackles the root cause of the problem - the lack of competition on roaming markets - by giving customers more choice and by giving alternative operators easier access to the roaming market," said Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice President for the Digital Agenda.
"It would also immediately bring down prices for data roaming, where operators currently enjoy outrageous profit margins."
Reaction
The Commission hopes the proposals will be given the go-ahead by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers by next year.
Ultimately, by 2015, the Commission would like to see prices for anyone making a call across the EU to be similar to making domestic calls.
But a body representing mobile operators has criticised the plans.
The GSM Association said it was "disappointed" that the Commission was considering price capping in addition to structural changes to the market.
"If any price caps are introduced, they should be set at true safeguard levels to avoid dampening innovation and competition in the market," a spokesman said.
"The retail data roaming market is growing quickly and prices are falling fast. We are convinced that competition can flourish in this market - if all regulators are prepared to favour it."
'High bills'
Price regulation was introduced in 2007 by the then commissioner for information, society and media, Viviane Reding.
Since then, the maximum call charge has been reduced by approximately 6% per year.
A group of UK mobile operators - O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile - attempted to challenge the Commission's price-cutting agenda, taking their case to the European Court of Justice.
However, their complaint was dismissed in June 2010.
The new price caps are planned to be in place until 30 June, 2016, when the Commission hopes that extra competition will make them redundant.
Monique Goyens, director general of the European Consumers' Organisation, said: "Roaming should not be a trap of travel in Europe. But too often it is, due to the potentially sky high costs and the dire lack of market choice.
"It is unjustifiable that data roaming can be 50 times more expensive than when at home."
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Energy firm Npower has closed down its app following an attack that exposed some customers' financial and personal information.
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Contact details, birth dates, addresses and partial bank account numbers are among details believed stolen.
The firm did not say how many accounts were affected by the breach, which was first reported by MoneySavingExpert.com.
But the affected accounts had been locked, Npower told the BBC.
"We identified suspicious cyber-activity affecting the Npower mobile app, where someone has accessed customer accounts using login data stolen from another website. This is known as 'credential stuffing'," the firm said in a statement.
"We've contacted all affected customers to make them aware of the issue, encouraging them to change their passwords and offering advice on how to prevent unauthorised access to their online account."
It also advised customers to change passwords on other accounts if using the same one.
It added that the mobile app had already been due to be shut down as part of wind-down plans following Npower's acquisition by Eon.
The Information Commissioner's Office confirmed that it had been informed about the hack.
"Npower has made us aware of an incident affecting their app and we are making enquiries," the ICO told the BBC.
It is not clear when the attack took place, but MoneySavingExpert said it had seen an email sent to customers at the beginning of the month warning that their accounts had been locked.
Action Fraud advised customers to keep an eye out for potential phishing emails and to monitor their bank accounts for suspicious activity.
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Guernsey States-owned airline Aurigny lost nearly £10m in 2019, while the loss in 2020 is unknown due to the collapse of travel in the pandemic.
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The problem was also exacerbated by the failure of Flybe in March.
A 2019 report concluded extending the airport runway could bring in £21m over 40 years.
However, that report could not anticipate the pandemic and its impact on air travel.
As part of our election coverage, the BBC offered all candidates a chance to comment on a key issue.
They were asked: What approach should the States take to the island's connectivity and its airline?
Sasha Kazantseva-Miller, from The Guernsey Partnership of Independents, said: "The new States should complete the review of Aurigny, air and sea links and the runway extension business case as soon as possible.
"This will give clearer direction about the role of Aurigny and priorities for action, albeit the travel landscape is uncertain for years to come due to Covid-19."
Adrian Gabriel said: "Any investment should not be piecemeal or on one part of our infrastructure - our harbours need more investment than our runway.
"Condor could be nationalised.
"The Gatwick route should be monopolised and protected.
"Visit Guernsey could offer subsides to European and UK visitors with very low fares to help stimulate our tourism economy."
Chris Nicolle said: "Business class seating - three/four rows, premium price to lower cost for economy class.
"During pandemic, establish air bridges with Covid negative island jurisdictions.
"Innovate - electric/hydrogen cell aircraft, ideal for island hopping/short haul. Technology is with us; we can work in conjunction with aerospace to our advantage."
The Alliance Party responded: "Need a fundamental review of the sections of Aurigny.
"Need real budgeting.
"Need to look at private sector interest in running an inter-island shuttle between Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey as private sector interest exists."
Jonathan Crossan said: "Aurigny is a lifeline.
"Core routes like Gatwick, Southampton and Alderney, must be supported as public service obligations, but the other routes could be separated and run commercially, perhaps as a national brand.
"But Condor too is in trouble and we must think how to protect our sea links."
Garry Collins said: "The purchase of Aurigny was a wise decision.
"We should be working with other airlines on franchise agreements getting Guernsey on to their networks.
"Bring back the old days when speaking on connectivity with Jersey, almost like a taxi service to the other island and support the electric aviation proposals."
Nick Moakes, from The Guernsey Party, said: "To retain existing business and attract inward investment, Guernsey has to improve connectivity with the outside world.
"We need to install high speed broadband, invest in our main harbour and extend the airport runway.
"We also need to review Aurigny's business model so that we can find ways to reduce the losses."
Diane Mitchell said: "Essential for economic growth, financial stability, tourism and survival.
"Prioritise sea links, particularly as the boats we can dock are reducing in number.
"I'm in favour of reviewing the extension of Longue Hougue peninsula into deeper water to accommodate larger ships.
"Sustaining Aurigny is a wise move."
The BBC also offered the opportunity to answer this question to Michael Beaumont, Adrian Dilcock, Darren Duquemin, Aidan Matthews, Rosie Henderson, as well as Jonathan Le Tocq and Sandra James from the Guernsey Partnership of Independents.
The other key issues we've spoken to candidates on include:
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A woman who lost a sexual discrimination case against her former employer in Silicon Valley is to appeal, despite facing legal costs.
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By Zoe KleinmanTechnology reporter, BBC News
Ellen Pao was asked to pay nearly $1m (£660,000) in legal fees after a jury found in favour of investor Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers.
The firm had said it would waive the costs if she did not appeal.
Ms Pao had claimed she missed out on promotions during her time as a junior partner because of her gender.
She also said she was dismissed in 2012, after she complained about her treatment.
The firm maintained its decisions were based on her performance and, following a high profile court case, a jury rejected her claims.
In addition to punitive damages, Ms Pao, now the interim chief executive of community website Reddit, had also asked for $16m (£10.7m) in compensation for lost wages.
She has filed a notice of appeal at the state court in San Francisco.
Neither Ms Pao nor her lawyer has made any comments.
"A 12-member jury found decisively in favour of KPCB [Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers] on all four claims," said Christina Lee, a spokesperson for the investor.
"We remain committed to gender diversity in the workplace and believe that women in technology would be best served by focusing on this issue outside of continued litigation."
At a conference in California last month, Ms Pao said she had no regrets about the case.
'Hard time'
"I didn't plan on becoming a symbol. It was more telling my story," she said, in a live blog by conference organiser Re/code.
Ms Pao added that the revelations made in court, where she was portrayed by the defence as a difficult employee with performance issues - had affected her both personally and professionally.
"I had a hard time getting a job. It's out there - I'm not that likeable and I'm a poor performer. There were people who wouldn't talk to me.
"There were people who were nervous to be seen with me. You have to have a lot of conviction you were right… and a lot of toughness to weather through the personal attacks."
The case put sexism in Silicon Valley under the spotlight.
The technology sector's struggle to attract women to the workforce is well documented.
Both Apple and its arch-rival Google revealed last year that 70% of their global workforces were male.
Google announced yesterday that 21% of the tech staff it hired in 2014 were women.
"Though we still have a long way to go, we're seeing some early progress," it said.
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Hundreds of fish have been rescued from a canoe lake after the water reached a dangerously low level.
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About 1,000 carp were feared to be at risk as the lake in Sandown on the Isle of Wight evaporated.
Police were called on Tuesday when volunteers began moving the carp, some of which were "gasping for air", into a makeshift tank.
The RSPCA subsequently gained a licence to move them to rescue ponds at its centre on the island.
The animal rescue charity said the fish would be returned at a "safe and suitable time".
Hampshire Constabulary said officers were called shortly after 18:00 BST to reports of people removing fish without the council's consent and placing them in a temporary holding tank.
It is against the law to move fish without authorisation from the Environment Agency, which regulates their movement to help protect stocks and the environment from parasites and diseases.
An Environment Agency spokesman said: "We have confirmed with written agreement that, due to the emergency nature of the situation, the usual paperwork to allow netting to happen in a lake to allow the fish to be temporarily held in holding tanks at the side of the lake can be filed retrospectively on this occasion.
"The RSPCA have visited the site and we understand that the necessary permissions have been agreed to allow some fish to be relocated to their holding facility at Godshill."
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Two councils have welcomed being taken out of special measures after improvements in how they run their schools.
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Pembrokeshire council said it was a "significant moment" after watchdog Estyn found a change in culture in education services.
Estyn also noted the progress made at Anglesey over the past two years.
Meanwhile, Powys, which had been monitored by the watchdog but was not in special measures, is also improving.
The council there had been asked to make significant improvements in October 2012 but now was making "sufficient progress".
ANGLESEY
Reaction: Council leader and education spokesman Ieuan Williams said a significant amount of work had been done and education services had been transformed over the past two years.
"We're pleased to see significant progress in all areas including standards, attendance, direction and business planning," he said.
PEMBROKESHIRE
Reaction: Council leader Jamie Adams said it was a "significant moment in a long and sometimes painful journey, but one which we had to undertake".
"We remain committed to doing everything that can reasonably be expected to keep children in our county safe," he said.
It now means that four councils - Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Monmouthshire and Merthyr - are still in the lowest categories for the quality of their education services.
POWYS
Reaction: Chief executive, Jeremy Patterson, who has assumed the role of director of education said: "It has been a challenging time for the council and in particular the schools service. We are now in a strong position to build upon these improvements and to ensure that the local authority and its schools are recognised amongst the best in Wales."
Education Minister Huw Lewis said: "They've made positive progress and have improved but they all must now work hard to ensure their improvements are sustainable to provide the best education possible for young people in their areas."
Last week First Minister Carwyn Jones told BBC Wales he thought some councils were incapable of improving education in their area.
Welsh Local Government Association spokesperson for education Ali Thomas, of Neath Port Talbot council, said the ability of local government to deliver improved education services had been called into question but the significant improvements should help reassure people.
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A man has died in a car crash outside a petrol station in South Yorkshire.
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The silver Ford Mondeo hit wooden posts on the side of Meadowbank Road in Rotherham at about 01:30 BST.
It stopped outside the Jet petrol station near Pembroke Street, where a 24-year-old man was pronounced dead.
A 19-year-old man, who suffered minor injuries, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and driving while unfit through drink or drugs.
South Yorkshire Police said it wanted to talk to the occupants of a black Seat Leon and a dark coloured Seat Altea, which were parked in the petrol station at the time of the crash.
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Restrictions on handing out short prison sentences in Scotland have had little impact on imprisonment and re-offending rates, according to research.
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The findings may affect sentencing policy in England and Wales as the UK government considers similar plans, a justice consultancy has found.
In Scotland, there is a presumption against courts passing jail sentences of fewer than three months.
The Scottish government is set to extend this to 12 months.
Official figures for 2018 showed those sentenced to short jail terms in Scotland were reconvicted almost twice as often in 12 months than those given community payback orders.
Crest Advisory - the consultants which carried out the research - said in its report that the presumption against short custodial sentences had coincided with a number of positive trends in Scotland since its introduction in February 2011.
These trends included:
But, it added, these trends were "largely consistent" with the previous years - before the presumption against short sentences was introduced.
With the exception of the prison population - which had previously been increasing - the trends above were already going in the same direction before 2011.
It concluded that the reductions had "simply continued at similar rates since".
The consultants added that it was unclear how much of the continuation of the trends could be attributed to the changes in sentencing guidelines, and how much was a result of other reforms to the criminal justice system.
Commenting on the report, Dr Sarah Armstrong, of Glasgow University's Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, said the use of community based sentences as an alternative to prison had already "significantly expanded".
Dr Armstrong said: "Community sentences being issued are issued with more conditions, more time, more review, than they ever have been before.
She added: "The government's move is really quite admirably bold in a way in that it's trying to make official a recognition that short prison services are not very effective [in that] they tend to pull people out of circulation to do not very much for anybody and I think that's an important acknowledgment."
There are also "political and a moral" decisions to be made, Dr Armstrong added, about why "extremely expensive, extremely isolating, community undermining institutions" like prisons are not appropriate "for the kind of offences that result in such short sentences".
'Strong and smart justice'
A spokeswoman for the Scottish government said: "We will shortly extend the presumption against short sentences in order to further promote more effective use of... non-custodial sentences.
"Our approach has been cited by the UK government as an example to follow for England and Wales.
"Prison will always be the right place for the most serious offenders but for many, jail is not effective.
"A combination of approaches such as a presumption against short sentences, ensuring remand is only used when necessary and appropriate, more effective use of community sentences and an expansion of electronic monitoring all play a part in delivering a strong and smart justice system in Scotland."
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A father who lost his son to leukaemia is calling for secondary schools and colleges to include one lesson on how to donate stem cells, blood and organs.
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Keith Sudbury wants to raise awareness by making donation part of the curriculum for students aged 16 and over.
His son Adrian received a stem cell transplant which gave him an extra year of life, but died aged 27.
Blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan is supporting the idea of 'Adrian's Law'.
Adrian spent the last two years of his life campaigning for better education about stem cell donation.
He took a petition to Downing Street and met the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown to talk about the campaign to get more young people to register as donors.
With Adrian's Law, his parents Kay and Keith want the message to reach more young people and they hope that there will be a Private Member's Bill in the Commons to highlight its importance.
"We urgently need more people willing to donate blood and stem cells," Keith Sudbury said.
"By taking this message to students 16 years and over we can grow the first generation of potential lifesavers who really understand what it means to donate blood, organs and stem cells."
Match up
Targeting this age group is important because young people are much more likely to be selected as a match for a stem cell donation, and yet 18-30 year olds only make up 12% of the register.
The Anthony Nolan register is used to match donors willing to donate their blood stem cells to people who need life-saving bone marrow transplants - like leukaemia patients.
Only one in 1,000 people who join the stem cell register will get called to donate their stem cells, and it is a simple process.
There are two methods of extracting stem cells. The first is through a vein in the arm and the second is from the bone marrow in the pelvis.
"It's a no brainer really. The more you educate people, the more people will join the register, the more matches you have and the more lives are saved," Keith says.
'Phenomenal'
There are currently almost 1,600 people in the UK waiting for a stem cell transplant and 37,000 worldwide.
But charity Anthony Nolan says they can only find a matching donor for half the people who come to them in desperate need of a transplant.
Henny Braund, chief executive of Anthony Nolan, said the response from presenting Adrian's story in schools has been "phenomenal".
"Thousands of teenagers have signed up.
"Taking this to 700,000 young people a year would help change the culture around donation and save thousands of lives.
"Adrian's Law will help young people grow into potential lifesavers."
Related Internet Links
Anthony Nolan
NHS Organ Donation
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The chances of being Tasered could depend on where people live as police are interpreting the rules differently, claims a human rights group.
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Amnesty International says some forces could be using it more than others.
January to September figures show Gwent Police used Tasers the most of the four Welsh forces, but North Wales was not far behind despite much lower rates of violent crime.
Police say all officers have the same training which is constantly monitored.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) guidelines say Tasers should be used to "control and neutralise a threat" but that the decision to use one is up to an "individual officer".
Amnesty says this is too vague and means the chances of being Tasered in Wales could differ from force to force depending on how they interpret the guidelines.
"There are a number of differences between different police forces in Wales," said Oliver Sprague, Amnesty's director for arms control and policing.
"In similar areas you would expect, if everybody was applying the rules in the same way, the use of Taser would be consistent, but it's not, which does raise a concern that there is a difference in interpretation."
Amnesty said that if the current rules were clear enough, the number of people Tasered would broadly follow levels of violent crime. However, the BBC has obtained figures for Welsh forces, and this does not appear to be the case.
Figures for last year show Gwent Police experienced the highest amount of violent crime, fired a Taser 22 times, and have consistently used it at that rate for the past three years.
South Wales Police experienced less violent crime, and used a Taser 17 times. North Wales had a lower level of violent crime than both South Wales Police and Gwent, but used it 18 times.
'Appropriate checks'
Dyfed-Powys, the smallest force with the lowest amount of violent crime, fired it nine times.
The Police Federation wants to treble the number of officers using Tasers in the UK, but campaigners want appropriate checks before such a large expansion.
Opponents claim the powerful electric shock from a Taser has contributed to over 500 deaths in America.
Gwent Police said their officers who use Tasers were specially trained in line with national guidelines.
"Taser provides police officers with a method of protecting themselves and the public in a way that is less lethal than conventional firearms," Gwent said in a statement.
"The mere presence of Taser acts as a deterrent during an incident involving a potential offender and allows the officer to respond with minimal risk to the offender, public or the officer and diffuse a potentially dangerous situation quickly.
"Officers who have the use of Taser are specially trained in line with national guidelines and each incident is treated individually, they risk assess the situation in terms of the danger posed before deciding whether the use of Taser is appropriate."
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A 12-year-old black boy whose song about the fears of being a young African American went viral has been signed by a major US record label.
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Keedron Bryant's song I Just Wanna Live, posted online one day after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is out on Friday.
Warner Records timed the release to coincide with Juneteenth, which marks the end of centuries of US slavery.
The song has already racked up millions of likes.
The soulful track was written by Keedron's mother and is sung a cappella by him.
It includes the lyrics: "I'm a young black man, doing all that I can to stand.
"Oh, but when I look around, and I see what's being done to my kind.
"Every day I'm being hunted as prey. My people don't want no trouble."
The young gospel singer's original Instagram post has attracted over 3m likes, and has drawn praise from former President Barack Obama, basketball legend LeBron James, singer Janet Jackson and actress Lupita Nyong'o.
"It's very exciting because this is what God's called me to do," Keedron, of Jacksonville, Florida, told the Associated Press earlier this week.
"It's just been an exciting experience to work with my mom."
His mother, Johnnetta Bryant, said that watching the video of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, dying as a police officer knelt on his neck last month "really hit my heart just so deeply because I am a mom to a black son.
"I have a black husband. I have black brothers, uncles, cousins, friends."
Warner plans to donate the profits to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
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Doctors treating Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny say he is out of an induced coma and his condition, since being poisoned, has improved.
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He is responding to verbal stimuli, they said. Mr Navalny, 44, was flown to Germany after falling ill on a flight in Siberia in August.
His team allege he was poisoned on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who denies any involvement.
German doctors say the Putin critic was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
On Monday, the Charité hospital in Berlin said in a statement that Mr Navalny was being weaned off mechanical ventilation.
"He is responding to verbal stimuli. It remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning," it said.
It also said doctors were in close contact with Mr Navalny's wife.
Mr Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted: "News about Alexei. Today he was taken out of induced coma. Gradually he will be switched off from a ventilator. He responds to speech and to being addressed to."
Mr Navalny is an anti-corruption campaigner who in recent years has become the most prominent opposition politician in Putin's Russia.
What happened to Alexei Navalny?
Mr Navalny fell ill on 20 August on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. His supporters suspect poison was placed in a cup of tea at Tomsk airport.
"Alexei started moaning and screaming. He was clearly in pain. He was lying on the floor in the part of the plane reserved for cabin crew," a passenger seated near Mr Navalny on the plane told BBC Russian.
The plane was diverted to Omsk, where the opposition politician was admitted to an emergency hospital. Russian officials initially refused to allow Mr Navalny to be transferred abroad for medical treatment but after three days he was flown by air ambulance to Berlin.
Last week, doctors in Germany said the results of toxicology tests carried out at a military laboratory gave "unequivocal proof" that Mr Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
Doctors in Omsk insisted that no poisonous substances had been detected in Mr Navalny's body when he was under their care.
On Monday, the Kremlin said it was "absurd" to blame Russia for Mr Navalny's poisoning. "Attempts to somehow associate Russia with what happened are unacceptable to us, they are absurd," Mr Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the allegation that Novichok was used was not backed up by evidence.
A Novichok nerve agent was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018. A UK investigation blamed the Russian state.
What's the international reaction?
On Monday, the British government summoned the Russian ambassador to the UK "to register deep concern about the poisoning".
"It's completely unacceptable that a banned chemical weapon has been used and Russia must hold a full, transparent investigation," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Monday..
In Germany there is growing pressure for Chancellor Angela Markel to take a tougher stance over the incident. Last week, she said Mr Navalny was the victim of attempted murder and that the world would look to Russia for answers.
Russia faces diplomatic fallout
Analysis by Damien McGuinness, BBC News, Berlin
Alexei Navalny's condition has improved but the German-Russian relationship looks far less healthy.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas says that if Moscow fails to co-operate with investigations into the poisoning within the next few days, Berlin will start talking to European partners about sanctions.
An even more explosive threat is that for the first time Angela Merkel's government is no longer ruling out halting building work on the nearly completed pipeline Nord Stream 2, which is supposed to bring Russian gas to Germany using a pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea.
But stopping the project would be costly. Around 120 European companies are involved and the total cost is more than €9bn (£8bn; $10.6bn). Germany would have to pay damages.
Chancellor Merkel may be under pressure. But German society is divided on how to deal with the Kremlin and German attitudes towards Russia are varied and complex. So tough anti-Moscow rhetoric is not a vote-winner. If action is needed, Mrs Merkel's preference will be targeted and co-ordinated action with the rest of the EU.
A spokesman for the German government said on Monday that it was too early to make a decision about Nord Stream. He said that Russia had "serious questions" to answer but that a response could not be expected in "three to four days".
The project must be completed despite current "difficulties", said Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak according to Interfax news agency.
The European Union has demanded a "transparent" investigation by the Russian government.
US President Donald Trump has refused to condemn Russia saying the case was "tragic" but he has not seen proof of Mr Putin's involvement.
When asked on Monday about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Mr Trump re-iterated US opposition to the gas project.
There have been a number of previous attacks on high-profile critics or opponents of President Putin, including politicians, intelligence officers and journalists. The Kremlin has always denied involvement.
What is Navalny known for?
Mr Navalny is an anti-corruption campaigner who has led nationwide protests against the Russian authorities. He first made his mark in 2008 when he started blogging about alleged malpractice and corruption at some of Russia's big state-controlled corporations.
He has called Mr Putin's party a place of "crooks and thieves" that is "sucking the blood out of Russia", and has faced attacks in the past.
However, he has been banned from standing against Mr Putin in recent elections because of a conviction for embezzlement. He denies the crime, saying his legal troubles are Kremlin reprisals for his fierce criticism.
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Congratulations have been flooding from all over the country for Leah Totton - but nowhere is the excitement greater than in her home city.
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The Londonderry doctor was crowned the winner of BBC One show The Apprentice on Wednesday night.
Her proud parents Lorraine and Trevor found out about their daughter's success during a special showing in London on Monday - and had to stay tight-lipped when they watched the final with family and friends back home in Derry.
"Most of the family didn't know, but it was just amazing watching it again, it just brought back all the emotion," Trevor Totton said.
"The first time we saw it - dear goodness, Lord Sugar really knows how to put you through it.
"Up to four or five seconds before, we just didn't know, but when Leah won it was just an incredible feeling.
"That was the pinnacle. As I said to the wife and family, that was just about the happiest, proudest moment of my life.
"I've never felt that way before."
For Leah's mum Lorraine, the wait was even harder.
"It was absolutely amazing to be able to share it with our family and friends," she said.
"Watching the show was absolutely awful, it was so intense, and even more so in the studio - they really shouldn't have put us through that.
"There's no better person to sell herself than Leah," said her aunt Helena Lindsay.
"This is a process to be Lord Sugar's business partner, and in my eyes that's just phenomenal.
"It's a massive achievement - it doesn't get much better than this, does it?"
For Leah herself, its not just a personal success, but something for the whole city to share.
"I'm the first in my family to leave Derry and I'm the first to go to university, so I think it's a great achievement not only for me but for my whole family and for the city," she said.
Lord Sugar will invest £250,000 in Leah's cosmetic procedure clinics - and a "Dr Leah" clinic could soon hit the streets of Derry.
"I would love that in the future," said Leah.
"It's my home city and it's the UK City of Culture 2013 so it's had a great year.
"It's where I grew up, and where my family are still based, and I would love in the future to have a base in Northern Ireland."
Leah said she was keen to get down to business - but first she plans to spend the weekend relaxing at home with family and friends.
"It's completely overwhelming, I can't even describe how I'm feeling. I'm on cloud nine."
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The US Navy destroyed an Iranian drone on Thursday after it refused to back down, President Donald Trump says.
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He said the USS Boxer downed the drone over the Strait of Hormuz - a strategic sea passage in the Gulf - after it came within 1,000 yards (914m) of the ship.
In June, Iran shot down a US military drone in the area. Tensions between the two countries remain high.
Iran has dismissed the latest US claim. A senior official even suggested it may have targeted its own drone by mistake.
"I am worried that USS Boxer has shot down their own UAS [unmanned aerial system]," Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi tweeted on Friday.
Earlier, Tehran said it had seized a "foreign tanker" and its 12 crew on Sunday for smuggling fuel in the Gulf.
Iran has been blamed by the US for attacks on tankers which have happened in the world's key shipping area since May. Tehran denies all the accusations.
The recent incidents have triggered fears of a military conflict in the region.
What have the US and Iran said about the incident?
Speaking at the White House, Mr Trump said: "I want to apprise everyone of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz today involving USS Boxer, a navy amphibious assault ship.
"The Boxer took defensive action against an Iranian drone which had closed into a very, very near distance, approximately 1,000 yards (914m), ignoring multiple calls to stand down and was threatening the safety of the ship and the ship's crew. The drone was immediately destroyed.
"This is the latest of many provocative and hostile actions by Iran against vessels operating in international waters. The United States reserves the right to defend our personnel, facilities and interests."
A defence department official quoted by the New York Times said the drone had been brought down using electronic jamming equipment.
But Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters in New York on Thursday that "we have no information about losing a drone today".
What about the seized oil tanker?
Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Sepah News site said on Thursday that an alleged fuel-smuggling ship was seized on Sunday during naval patrols aimed at "discovering and confronting organised smuggling".
Iran's state media quoted the Guards as saying the vessel had been smuggling one million litres (220,000 gallons) of fuel.
The state media later published footage of Iranian speedboats circling around the Panamanian-flagged Riah tanker.
The vessel was seized south of Iran's Larak Island, Iran said. Washington called on Iran to immediately release the ship.
What's the background to this?
Tensions have been high in the Gulf since the US tightened the sanctions that it reimposed on Iran's oil sector after unilaterally withdrawing from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.
The US has blamed Iran for two separate attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in May and June - an allegation Tehran has denied.
Iran also shot down a US surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran said the aircraft had violated Iranian airspace, and that the incident sent a "clear message to America".
The US military said the drone had been over international waters at the time, and condemned what it called an "unprovoked attack".
UK warships have meanwhile been shadowing British oil tankers in the area since Iran threatened to seize one in response to the impounding of an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar.
The UK said the tanker was suspected of breaching EU sanctions against Syria. Iran denied it was en route there.
US Central Command Chief General Kenneth McKenzie, speaking on a visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, said he was working "aggressively" to find a solution to free passage for ships through the Gulf region, Reuters news agency reports.
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Greek police say they have arrested a man in Athens in connection with a series of letter bomb attacks on EU officials earlier this year.
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Eight packages were intercepted in Athens in March after booby-trapped post was sent to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Paris and the German finance minister in Berlin.
Former Greek PM Lucas Papademos was then injured by a parcel-bomb in May.
A 29-year-old Greek man was arrested by anti-terror police on Saturday.
Police said in a statement that they were looking for other suspects in relation to the investigation.
It is not clear if the man is linked to the Greek far-left group Conspiracy of Fire Cells which said it was responsible for the device sent to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
The group was previously responsible for a similar spate of letter-bombs sent to officials in 2010 which forced Greek authorities to temporarily suspend international post.
A number of the group's members were given heavy prison sentences in 2011.
The group emerged in 2008 during the height of Greece's financial crisis.
Ex-PM Papademos suffered minor injuries when he opened the explosive parcel in his car.
He served as prime minister between 2011-2012 when he oversaw a wave of controversial austerity measures aimed at securing a European bailout for the country.
He had previously served as the Governor of the Bank of Greece and vice-president of the European Central Bank.
The other packages intercepted at an Athens postal sorting centre were addressed to EU political figures including the European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici.
Police said the devices contained gunpowder usually found in firecrackers.
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Conservative Party members in South Suffolk are being balloted over whether to deselect sitting MP Tim Yeo.
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The local Conservative Association's executive committee voted to him as its candidate for the next general election in 2015.
It followed the MP being cleared by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards of breaking lobbying rules.
Mr Yeo challenged the local party's decision and Conservative Central Office is overseeing the ballot.
The vote will close on 3 February and the result is expected that day.
'Dignified departure'
Mr Yeo has been MP for South Suffolk since 1983.
Andrew Sinclair, BBC East's political correspondent, said the move to drop him was due to "frustration" among some senior local party figures who felt he was not devoting enough time to his constituency.
He said: "His local association had hoped he would decide to retire at the next election so that he could make a dignified departure from politics."
Mr Yeo has said he did not want to retire and was therefore challenging the executive committee's decision by requesting the ballot of all members of the local association.
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British ISPs have been told to block access to two websites accused of aiding piracy on a "mass scale".
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The court order to block EZTV and YIFY Torrents was made last week and should take effect soon.
The two are the latest in a growing list of websites to which UK ISPs have been asked to block access.
Action against the sites was started by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) in conjunction with the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
File-sharing news site TorrentFreak said the High Court decision followed efforts by Fact and the MPA to contact the owners of both sites. The MPA is the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America.
A spokesman for Fact said it and the MPA had given both sites a chance to avoid legal action by responding to cease and desist orders, by both industry groups, to remove pirated content issued.
Fact said it had resorted to legal action when no action to remove infringing content was forthcoming.
The process to get the UK courts to issue blocking orders was now well established, he said, and the UK's biggest ISPs typically took a fortnight to impose blocks.
The action against the two sites was just one aspect of a broader policy targeting pirate sites, said the Fact spokesman.
Efforts were also being made to cut off funds to infringing websites by targeting ad networks that some sites relied on to generate cash.
In addition, he said, payment providers were looking at ways to stop donations and other payments getting through to pirate sites.
A growing number of sites accused of aiding piracy are now blocked to UK web users.
The list includes the Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents, H33T, Fenopy, Movie2K and Download4All. In addition, the Premier League has won a block on football streaming site FirstRow1.eu.
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System crashes caused by bugs in the Anthem video game have led Sony to offer full refunds to players.
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Many people reported on social media that a serious bug had led to their PlayStation 4 console switching off.
When the machine rebooted it warned of possible memory corruption and other problems if such an abrupt shutdown happened again.
Sony was quick to give "full refunds" when asked by gamers worried by the crash.
Anthem is a squad-based, science-fictional shooter that challenges players to defeat a series of enemy aliens or "exos" using the offensive capabilities of an armoured, flying suit called a Javelin.
Long grind
The discussion forum on social news site Reddit that has sprung up around the widely anticipated Anthem game has a long thread collecting reports of gamers hit by the "scary" crash.
Many reported that Sony had given refunds for digital versions of Anthem with "no questions asked" when users had complained and mentioned the system crash.
The consensus in the thread lays the blame on an update issued last week but opinion is divided about the sequence of events that triggers the power down.
Some gamers reported that it did not strike if they manually turned their console off after playing rather than leaving it in a suspended mode.
Neither Sony, nor Anthem-maker Bioware have issued a public statement about the bug and its origin.
However, Bioware engineers have responded to complaints in the game's official forums, where they said they were "hard at work" on a fix.
Anthem publisher EA has also reportedly asked for help to diagnose the bug and its causes.
In a tweet, Jesse Anderson, global community manager for Anthem, said it was collecting information about crashes while readying the patch.
"Some issues will be addressed faster than others, with hot-fixes, others require a client update, which take longer to get ready," he wrote.
The serious crash reports have added to the generally negative reception Anthem has received since it was released in late February.
Players have called the game "grindy" as it requires them to repeat simple quests and missions to improve their character.
There have also been complaints about how short the game is and the lack of decent rewards for those that have stuck with it.
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Labour's John McDonnell has claimed victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were "murdered" by "political decisions".
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Speaking at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday, the shadow chancellor blamed the decision to "view housing as only for financial speculation".
At least 79 people are feared to have died in the fire in west London, which began in the early hours of 14 June.
Housing minister Alok Sharma said it was "disappointing" that people wanted to make it "a party political issue".
It is thought the building's recently-installed cladding may have helped the fire to spread.
The type of insulation material used on the tower is also being investigated, along with suggestions that the way the insulation and cladding was installed could have created a chimney effect.
Cladding from as many as 600 tower blocks across England is now being tested for safety.
So far, cladding on 60 high-rise buildings in 25 areas has failed, and none has passed.
One of the blocks which failed was Elizabeth House in Wembley - to the "surprise" of the building's management company.
Noel Brosnan, a company director at Octavia Housing, said: "This building was constructed in 2013 and at that time we got the assurances that it met and complied with building regulations and it has been signed off by the local authority.
"So of course we were quite surprised and dismayed to hear that this building did not meet building regulations."
The prime minister ordered a public inquiry on 15 June and is due to chair a meeting of the Grenfell Tower Recovery Taskforce on Monday.
Insulation and cladding taken from Grenfell Tower failed preliminary safety tests last week.
Mr McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, was speaking in a panel debate at Glastonbury's Left Field event, chaired by Guardian journalist John Harris.
He said: "Is democracy working? It didn't work if you were a family living on the 20th floor of Grenfell Tower.
"Those families, those individuals - 79 so far and there will be more - were murdered by political decisions that were taken over recent decades.
"The decision not to build homes and to view housing as only for financial speculation rather than for meeting a basic human need made by politicians over decades murdered those families.
"The decision to close fire stations and to cut 10,000 fire fighters and then to freeze their pay for over a decade contributed to those deaths inevitably, and they were political decisions."
A source close to Mr McDonnell confirmed the quotes were accurate.
Jim Fitzpatrick, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety, said his Labour colleague's comments were inappropriate.
"Jumping to conclusions and pointing a finger of blame at this point, I think, is somewhat premature," he added.
Mr Sharma, who replaced Gavin Barwell as the housing minister following the general election, said the cladding in question had been installed over a wide time period and under councils controlled by different political parties.
Pressed on a timescale to complete the testing, he said the government was working "round the clock" to get the work done.
There is the capacity carry out 100 tests a day, he said, but samples need to be sent in as quickly as possible.
He said: "Some councils are acting very quickly and we want all of them to be acting urgently on this."
Mr Sharma also said the government would "offer support" to councils, although he wouldn't put an exact figure on financial aid.
Over the weekend, Camden Council evacuated 650 people from four tower blocks in Swiss Cottage area, after London Fire Brigade raised concerns about cladding, gas pipe insulation, and fire doors.
The four blocks were renovated by Rydon between 2006 and 2009 - the same company which oversaw the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower from 2015 to 2016.
Five high-rise buildings in Sunderland had cladding removed as a precautionary measure to "reassure residents".
Buildings have been also declared unsafe in Doncaster, Norwich, Stockton-on-Tees, Manchester, Plymouth and Portsmouth.
In Scotland, Holyrood is going to hold its own investigation into the safety of tower blocks, expanding an ongoing inquiry into housing and building regulations.
The Scottish Government has already said that no council or housing association high-rise block has cladding of the type believed to have been used in Grenfell Tower.
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Scores of GCSE and A-level pupils face having to repeat an entire academic year after their school decided to fold midway through their course.
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Abbots Bromley School announced in March it would shut on 5 July unless a buyer could be found.
The fee-paying, mixed site in Staffordshire says it has a funding crisis, and a purchase is not forthcoming.
Angry parents say it leaves students high and dry as exams loom.
Children in years 10 and 12 are halfway through their two-year GCSE and A-level programmes respectively, and look set to need new schools to complete their studies.
According to parents, that is proving difficult as pupils are struggling to find local alternatives that offer courses with the same exam board.
Without a match to studies already under way, they say pupils will have to start over instead and repeat years 10 and 12.
The school, which has about 200 pupils aged three to 18, says it is assisting with transfers. It is thought about 40 year 10 students are affected, with about 20 in year 12 facing similar uncertainty.
Parent Lisa Butler says her 14-year-old daughter is distraught.
"She in the first year of her GCSEs and if we can't find a like-for-like school, she will have to repeat or cram two years into one somewhere else, which is tremendous pressure and a real concern.
"It's very hard to be positive when you're in a situation you don't want to be in."
The Rugeley site is an independent boarding and day school, responsible for its own governance and finance under the umbrella of charity Woodard Corporation which owns dozens of schools and academies across England.
The school, which charges up to £15,800 a year for day students, says a potential overseas buyer's interest has cooled and there is no official offer to purchase.
But parents claim four overseas investors have contacted them via their campaign website to express an interest in buying the school and they have passed them on to the charity
A-level student Katie Barrett says she is annoyed by her situation.
"This year feels like a bit of a waste because I'm now going to have to re-do it all and obviously different exam boards mean different techniques."
Her father Stephen added: "It's heartbreaking for her having to re-do the course again."
A spokesperson for the school said losses were sustained over several years and it was short of "working capital", meaning it was unable to guarantee it would not run out of funds, resulting in sudden closure.
Therefore, she added, the school had given notice from mid-March for "orderly closure".
She said "a number of families have found schools with similar exam boards and timetables", but the governing board recognised there was an impact on some pupils in exam years.
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US lawmakers and both presidential candidates have raised questions about AT&T's deal to buy Time Warner.
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The US telecoms giant, already the country's third largest cable provider, is paying $85.4bn (£70bn) for the company, which owns CNN and HBO.
A Senate subcommittee responsible for competition will hold a hearing in November.
However, AT&T's chief executive Randall Stephenson believes regulators will approve the deal.
Senator Mike Lee, the Republican who chairs the antitrust subcommittee, said the deal would "potentially raise significant antitrust issues, which the subcommittee would carefully examine".
The biggest merger to be announced this year would combine AT&T's distribution network, which includes 130m mobile phone customers and 25m pay-TV subscribers, with content from the Warner Brothers film studios and the cable TV channels HBO, the Cartoon Network and CNN.
The competition concerns centre on higher prices for customers and less consumer choice.
A spokesman for the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said there were "a number of questions and concerns" about the deal that regulators needed to scrutinise, but added "there's still a lot of information that needs to come out before any conclusions should be reached".
Meanwhile Republican candidate Donald Trump has said that he would block the merger if he wins, because it was "too much concentration of power in the hands of too few".
The president does not have the final say - that lies with the US Justice Department, which can approve, block or put conditions on the takeover going through.
Other critics, such as John Bergmayer from Public Knowledge, a campaign group that promotes access to affordable media, warned that consumers may lose out from the deal. Mr Bergmayer suggested that AT&T might let mobile customers watch TV and films from Time Warner without counting it against their data caps, which would make video from other providers less attractive.
But AT&T's Mr Stephenson argued that there was "no competitive harm that is being rendered by putting these two companies together, so any concerns by the regulators, we believe, will be adequately addressed by conditions."
AT&T incentives
The competition lawyer Amanda Wait from Hunton & Williams in Washington said it was not a straightforward issue.
"The anti-trust division here in the US is going to have to take a hard look at how this deal changes AT&T's incentives and that's a really complicated question," she told BBC radio's World Business Report.
There are two main issues, she said. Firstly, whether AT&T now has an incentive to withhold Game of Thrones from other cable providers. And secondly, whether AT&T will favour its own content over others that it's carrying.
"Is AT&T going to have an incentive to make HBO and other Time Warner channels more visible, more easily accessible on [AT&T's] various service networks and dis-favour, or maybe even hide, the other channels that it's carrying?" she said.
Analysis: Joe Lynam, BBC correspondent
AT&T has the means by which millions of Americans consume their entertainment. It owns the platform - be that cable or broadband - which enables people to watch their favourite shows. But it does not - until now- own the shows or the "content" which households want to watch, be that Game of Thrones, CNN or live NBA basketball.
Buying Time Warner, which we should not confuse with Time Warner Cable, allows AT&T to become a full service media provider and one of the more important companies in the world.
It allows a newly-merged entity to steal a march on the likes of Verizon or Comcast in a very competitive US market.
But the deal may never happen. It could be deemed anti-competitive by regulators because AT&T already owns mobile phone, broadband and cable TV networks, and allowing it to control the shows as well might deprive consumers of choice.
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A service to mark 60 years since the Munich air crash which killed 23 people, including eight Manchester United players, has taken place.
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The crash, on 6 February 1958, happened on United's return from a European Cup tie in Belgrade.
Eight players, three club staff, eight journalists, two crew members and two passengers were killed.
The Old Trafford service included a minute's silence at 15:04, the time of the crash.
Thousands of fans turned out for the ceremony.
Manchester United invited season ticket holders aged over 65 but said all supporters were welcome.
Former United players Sir Bobby Charlton and Harry Gregg, who both survived the crash, were at the ceremony, along with former manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
Current manager Jose Mourinho and captain Michael Carrick laid wreaths.
At the scene: Simon Stone, BBC Sport
Around 4,500 people were present for the afternoon's 40-minute service, which poignantly took place amid a light snow fall.
Club officials wore ties bearing the names of the eight players who died in the tragedy, while United chaplain John Boyers in a roll call of the 23 who lost their lives in the crash.
The presence of the two remaining survivors, Harry Gregg and Sir Bobby Charlton, was particularly well received.
Gregg, who went to the club's Carrington training ground earlier to meet the players, said it would be the last time he comes to Old Trafford.
He sat behind current first team manager Jose Mourinho, who made a point of shaking the Northern Irishman's hand.
Sheffield Wednesday, United's first opponents after the crash, were represented, as were Bishop Auckland, who loaned the club players.
Kenny Dalglish was also present, as was former Manchester City star Mike Summerbee, in a nod to the loss felt by the whole city at the death of former Blues keeper Frank Swift.
Gregg told BBC Sport NI he did not believe the disaster had defined him or the club.
"I do not think what happened in Munich made Manchester United. It is a very large part of Manchester United history but it's not all Manchester United," he said.
"I have seen Manchester United through bad times and good times.
"I'm just very glad that Harry Gregg from 34 Windsor Avenue was counted good enough to play for what I consider to be one of the greatest clubs in the world."
Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness and chief executive officer Karl-Heinz Rummenigge took part in a memorial service held in Munich.
The club tweeted a tribute:
United fans have also paid their respects to the victims by visiting the site of the crash.
Wreaths were also laid at Partizan Stadium in Belgrade, Serbia where the team had played before the crash.
The club held a silence before the Premier League home game against Huddersfield Town on Saturday.
The Munich air disaster
Sir Matt Busby's team, nicknamed the Busby Babes, were in unstoppable form that season with journalists speculating they might have won a treble of the FA Cup, Division One title and the European Cup.
Seven of the players were killed in the crash, with rising star Duncan Edwards dying 15 days later in hospital.
Club legend Sir Bobby Charlton, who was 20 at the time, suffered head injuries, while Busby was critically ill and had the last rites given to him.
Among the journalists killed was Frank Swift, the former Manchester City and England goalkeeper, who died on his way to hospital.
The plane's co-pilot Ken Rayment was the final victim, dying 23 days after the crash.
Writing in his blog, United midfielder Juan Mata said the victims "will never be forgotten, they will always be remembered and will be a part of United's history forever".
"The passion, determination and courage shown by the club to carry on in those horrible moments have left an indelible mark forever."
Many of the side's former and current players, including Rio Ferdinand, Edwin van der Sar and Carrick, paid tribute to those who died on Twitter, using the hashtag #FlowersofManchester.
The National Football Museum in Manchester also staged a minute's silence at 15:04 in the Hall of Fame and opened a book of condolence.
The museum said it had added a number of new items to its Busby Babes display.
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Former transport minister Theresa Villiers has been appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
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The MP for Chipping Barnet replaces Owen Paterson in the first major restructuring since the coalition government came to power in 2010.
Mike Penning will be a minister in the Northern Ireland Office.
Ms Villiers said she would "relish the opportunity to build a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland".
Mr Paterson is taking over as environment minister.
Ms Villiers was an MEP before becoming an MP and is a former barrister and lecturer.
In a statement, she said being the Northern Ireland secretary was a "really important job in government".
"Huge progress has been made in Northern Ireland over recent years," she said.
"As the headlines in the past few days demonstrate, however, we still have some way to go if we are to overcome the divisions in society and build a genuinely shared future.
"I look forward to working with the executive, political parties and people from right across the community to build a stable, peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland for everyone."
Mike Penning is MP for Hemel Hempstead. He was first elected in May 2005. After the May 2010 election, he was appointed as parliamentary under secretary of state for transport.
He has previously served on the Health Select Committee and as executive member of the Conservative 1922 Committee. He was a shadow minister for health from 2007 to 2010.
In his previous career in the Army, he served with the Grenadier Guards in Northern Ireland, Kenya and Germany. He also worked as a fireman and, later, as a political journalist.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt: "In welcoming Theresa Villiers, I would like to pay tribute to Owen Paterson who was not only a hard-working secretary of state but possibly the most diligent shadow secretary of state we have ever had. I hope his successor will show the same enthusiasm and commitment," he said.
"I urge her to clarify whether she will be as supportive of the devolution of the powers to vary Corporation Tax to Northern Ireland as Owen Paterson was," he added.
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More than £3m has been spent on a "corruption" inquiry into a missing loan to a football club.
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By Matt PreceyBBC News
Northampton Borough Council loaned £10.25m to Northampton Town in 2013 and 2014 to redevelop Sixfields stadium, but the funds seemingly vanished.
The council has paid out £2.3m to find the money and Northamptonshire Police has spent £974,000 investigating allegations including theft and fraud.
The force said the case was of "high public interest".
Detectives working on Operation Tuckhill have previously described it as a which also involves allegations of bribery and money laundering.
The £10.25m loan was intended to rebuild part of Northampton Town's stadium and develop nearby land.
'In line'
But the work was not completed after the company into which more than £7m of the money was channelled, 1st Land Ltd, went bust.
Det Ch Supt Mark Behan said the case was of "high public interest" and the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner would apply for extra funding from the Home Office.
It would be "inappropriate not to complete the investigation on the basis of cost," he added.
"While the costs are substantial, they are in line with our expectations."
Northampton Borough Council has paid law firms, auditors and a company providing document storage to trace the missing money but the figure does not reflect the costs of its officers' time.
The largest single cost incurred by the council was a payment to law firm Osborne Clarke and hiring a QC in relation to its successful Birmingham High Court action against the former owners of Northampton Town, David and Anthony Cardoza in 2019.
Anthony Cardoza declared himself bankrupt after he was ordered to repay £2.1m from the amount loaned to the club.
Northampton Borough Council costs breakdown
Source: Freedom of Information request
The Crown Prosecution Service is currently reviewing files relating to 30 suspects including the former council leader and ex-Conservative MP for Northampton South, David Mackintosh, along with the owner of 1st land Ltd, Howard Grossman.
Both Mr Grossman and Mr Mackintosh deny any wrongdoing.
Councillor Jonathan Nunn, leader of Northampton Borough Council, said: "Legal action is expensive, and we know we have to be extremely careful when considering the additional costs involved in recovering this money, alongside considering the strength of public feeling towards the recovery of the loan.
"This is a long process, and we may never recover the full amount, but we are committed to doing all we can to give Northampton's tax payers a fair outcome."
Northamptonshire Police said its inquiry was now in the final stages.
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Refuse collectors in Merseyside have walked out over fears they are being put at risk of catching coronavirus.
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Workers from the union Unite claim Biffa Waste Services, which empties bins for Wirral Council, does not have strict enough social distancing.
Unite said Biffa was still instructing crews of up to three workers to share a cab on their collection rounds.
Wirral Council said it was working closely with Biffa to "come to a speedy and appropriate resolution".
In a statement Biffa said: "We strongly refute Unite's claim that we have failed to take the health concerns of our employees seriously."
It added: "We are closely monitoring and strictly following the guidance set out by both Public Health England (PHE) and the Waste Industry Safety and Health Forum (Wish)."
Unite said it had been demanding for more than a fortnight that Biffa introduced strict social distancing measures to help ensure the workforce was not exposed to the coronavirus.
It claimed the company had failed to take the workforce's "concerns seriously", and up to three crew members were still being told to share a cab on refuse rounds.
'Failed to protect'
This was at odds with measures taken in other areas which ensured bin workers were appropriately spaced out, the union added.
Unite regional officer Steven Gerrard said: "For over a fortnight Unite has been trying to ensure that Biffa introduced measures to protect our members and they have failed to do so.
"We have been calling for an urgent meeting to find a safe workable solution to our members' health concerns, but these calls have been ignored."
A Wirral Council spokesman said: "It is our understanding that all the health and safety measures currently in place for Biffa crews in Wirral are in line with national guidelines for key workers from the waste industry, as set out by the Waste Industry Safety and Health Forum."
Last week bin men in Birmingham refused to pick up rubbish bags with used face masks spilling out of them found at a block of flats.
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East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) failed to reach thousands of patients in rural parts of Derbyshire in 2013 within the target time, figures show.
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By Chris DoidgeBBC Radio Derby political reporter
EMAS is supposed to reach 75% of serious cases within eight minutes.
But in areas around Matlock, Ashbourne, Swadlincote and Bakewell, figures suggest the service failed to reach even 50% of people within that time.
The service said sparsely-populated areas presented it with "many operational challenges".
BBC Radio Derby asked EMAS, in a Freedom of Information request, for its average response time to Red 1 or Red 2 emergencies in each of the postcode areas that it covers.
Across Derbyshire and parts of East Staffordshire in 2013, the average response time was seven minutes and 14 seconds for Red 1 calls.
For Red 2 calls it was six minutes and 46 seconds.
But the average response time in many rural postcode areas was much longer.
Calls for improvement
In the Ashbourne, Matlock and Bakewell areas, the most serious emergencies were responded to in an average of about 11 minutes.
In the DE12 postcode area, near Swadlincote, the average Red 1 response time was more than 10 minutes.
The service's overall average response time - on which it is judged by the Department of Health - was improved to less than six minutes by fast average response times in Derby.
Heather Wheeler, Conservative MP for South Derbyshire which includes Swadlincote, said: "The service has not been good enough.
"I have had the opportunity to meet with the new interim chief executive and interim chairman and they assure me their number one aim is to give a decent timely service to the people of South Derbyshire."
EMAS said: "When compared to urban areas, the number of calls we receive is very low.
"This means there is a reduced likelihood of there being a vehicle in close proximity to where help is needed.
"In response to these challenges, we provide cover by placing staff at strategic standby points rather than them waiting to respond to a call from a station which may itself be a long way from the location of the next call."
In May 2013 EMAS was fined £3.5m after it had missed response time targets for a third successive year.
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Failures in the care of a teenager who drowned in a care unit were due to "poor practice by clinical staff", an NHS-commissioned report has found.
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Connor Sparrowhawk, 18, drowned after an epileptic seizure at Slade House, in Headington, Oxfordshire, in July 2013.
The report also also identified "deficiencies" following organisational change in 2012.
Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust said changes had been made since Connor's death.
On 4 July 2013, Connor was discovered submerged and unresponsive in a bath at the learning disability unit, which has since been closed.
A post-mortem examination concluded he drowned after an epileptic seizure.
An inquest in Oxford last week concluded neglect contributed to Connor's death.
The jury concluded there were "serious failings" by the trust, including those concerning with checking him while bathing.
'Not work effectively'
The second independent report by consultants Verita into Connor's death was jointly commissioned by NHS England South and Oxfordshire Safeguarding Adults Board.
It echoed the earlier report that clinical staff "failed to carry out procedures and processes that were their responsibility and within the competence and knowledge expected of registered health professionals".
"Principally, clinical staff did not work effectively together and follow NICE guidelines regarding the care of individuals with epilepsy," it said.
The report said the failings were not caused by managers or commissioners.
It also highlighted issues with the takeover of the Ridgeway Partnership by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust in 2012.
Authors said staff in the smaller learning disability service were not supported when they joined the larger organisation, based in Hampshire.
Following the publication of the Verita report, trust chief executive Katrina Percy repeated her apology to Connor's family for his "preventable" death.
"In the two years since he died we have made many changes to the way we provide services for people with learning disabilities.
"The experiences of Connor's family have brought into sharp focus the need to engage more effectively with patients, their families and carers, learning from their experience and expertise and involving them in every decision concerning care."
She said the trust now had a "intensive support team", had strengthened its clinical leadership and introduced mandatory comprehensive epilepsy training for staff caring for people with learning disabilities.
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A Powys pub at the centre of a row over plans to turn it into a supermarket could be bought by a community group.
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Punch Taverns wanted to turn The Corn Exchange in Crickhowell, into a shop, with a retail giant interested - the town has only one national retailer.
But the idea has been withdrawn following fierce opposition, though Punch Taverns said the plans could be reintroduced later.
A businessman has offered to set up a "community investment club".
About 12 people put their names forward to join the consortium and the Corn Exchange Action Group has appealed for more investors to come forward.
More than 3,500 people signed a petition and 2,560 letters of objection were written to prevent the supermarket taking over the building.
Boots chemist is the only national chain in the town. All other businesses are family run and independent.
Punch Taverns said in a statement the decision to withdraw the plans followed discussions about alternative uses for the building, which it said it hoped would succeed.
But it said the plans could be reintroduced if the talks failed.
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Samsung has stepped up its focus on artificial intelligence (AI) by taking over Viv, a digital assistant developed by the creators of Apple's Siri.
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The acquisition comes just days after Google launched its new Pixel phone which also puts a strong focus on an AI digital assistance function.
Amazon and Microsoft are also making a push into getting computers to learn and respond like human beings.
Samsung has recently seen its image battered by the global Note 7 recall.
The company plans to use Viv in its phones, televisions and a wide range of other devices.
The deal showed Samsung's "commitment to virtual personal assistants and is part of the company's broader vision to deliver an AI-based open ecosystem across all of its devices and services," the South Korean tech giant said in a statement.
"With the rise of AI, consumers now desire an interaction with technology that is conversational, personalised and contextual - an experience that fits seamlessly within their everyday lives," the firm added.
AI boom
According to Viv Labs chief executive Dag Kittlaus, the new AI assistant's mission is to "breathe life into inanimate objects".
Mr Kittlaus was behind developing Siri, the digital assistant bought by Apple in 2010. He remained with Apple until he left in 2012 when he began working on Viv.
"We see a future that is decidedly beyond apps, where you can get what you need quickly and easily no matter where you are, or what device you are near," he said.
Earlier this week, Google launched a number of new devices that also place a virtual assistant at the heart of their functionality.
The AI technology in the Google smartphones and voice-activated speakers is one step ahead of Apple's Siri in that they can hold a conversation, in which one question or command builds on the last, rather than dealing with each request in isolation.
Retail and technology giant Amazon's also has an AI-driven device on the market.
The company's Echo speaker can answer questions, control other internet-connected devices, build shopping lists and link in to dozens of third-party services like Spotify, Uber or BBC News.
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Labour MP Simon Danczuk says he is stepping back from his campaigning work on child sexual abuse to seek help for depression.
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The Rochdale MP said he had sought help from a psychiatrist because hearing victims' accounts had taken its toll on his mental health.
In an interview with Becky Milligan for BBC Radio 4's The World at One, he said it had also affected his marriage.
Mr Danczuk has been at the forefront of campaigning on child abuse allegations.
He previously investigated allegations against former MP Cyril Smith, and has pressed the Home Office for action in relation to other historical abuse cases.
"I would say I have been suffering from depression to the point where I have decided to seek help for that," he said, revealing that he had experienced suicidal thoughts at times.
He said he was "getting angry at stuff I shouldn't be getting angry at, fairly mundane things" and becoming "aggressive - not violently aggressive - but getting angry about things".
Mr Danczuk, who has been an MP since 2010, said he was "perhaps drinking a bit too much", particularly after his meetings with abuse victims.
He said Parliament offered a regular "MOT" with a doctor who had referred him to a psychiatrist, who had given him "permission" to step back from the work, he said.
Mr Danczuk, who recently separated from his wife, said he was "in no doubt" it had take its toll on his marriage.
"It's not conducive to a happy relationship, is it," he said.
Asked about the effect of MPs' work on their mental health, he said there was an expectation to be "tough" in politics, adding: "I do not think that's such a virtue in this day and age."
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Passers-by who tackled a man wielding a knife on London Bridge have been praised as "amazing heroes".
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The man had stabbed two people to death and wounded three others in a terror-related attack.
Footage on social media shows the knifeman being held down by members of the public before firearms officers intervene and shoot him dead.
One man who helped restrain the attacker said they had been trying to dislodge a knife from this hand.
The suspect, Usman Khan, 28, was a convicted terrorist who had been released on licence.
The Queen praised the emergency services and "the brave individuals who put their own lives at risk to selflessly help and protect others".
Members of the public also expressed their admiration for those involved.
George Robarts tweeted about the "bravery" of one man, filmed walking away from the attacker holding a knife.
British Transport Police (BTP) said the man seen holding the knife was a plain-clothes officer.
BTP Chief Constable Paul Crowther, said: "The courageous actions he took when faced with the horrors of this attack are remarkable.
"He, as well as other members of the public, should be extremely proud of what they did to stop this man on London Bridge."
Amy Coop, who was inside Fishmongers' Hall where the attack began, tweeted her praise of a man who went to confront the attacker.
A chef, known as Lukasz, was joined by another man who used a fire extinguisher and let it off in the face of the attacker to try to keep him at bay.
Fishermans' chief executive Toby Williamson said both men thought a bomb might be involved.
He confirmed Lukasz was among the injured, but said he was "doing all right".
"They are two of the most humble people you would know. They would have used their fists if they had to," he said.
He praised all his staff adding they were "determined to level the odds against a madman".
Tour guide Stevie Hurst was one of those who helped restrain Khan on the bridge.
He told BBC 5 live he saw the suspect being held down.
People were screaming that the attacker had "stabbed a couple of women", he said.
"Everyone was just on top of him, trying to bundle him to the ground.
"We saw that the knife was still in his hand... I just put a foot in to try and kick him in the head.
"We were trying to do as much as we could to try and dislodge the knife from his hand so he wouldn't harm anyone else."
Mr Hurst's colleague, Thomas Gray, 24, said he stamped on the terrorist's wrist to try to make him release one of two large knives he was carrying.
The tour manager said: "I was brought up on rugby and the rule is 'one in, all in'. I did what any Londoner would do and tried to put a stop to it.
"He had two knives on him, one in each hand, and it looked like they were taped to his hands.
"I stamped on his left wrist while someone else smacked his hand on the ground and kicked one of the knives away."
It has also emerged that one of the people who helped tackle Khan was James Ford, who in 2004 was jailed in Kent for the murder of 21-year-old Amanda Champion.
'A lot of courage'
Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said she wanted to thank the members of the public who helped, "showing extraordinary courage by stepping in to tackle this attacker".
Brendan Cox, whose wife MP Jo Cox was murdered, said: "I hope the front pages tomorrow are full of the stories of the everyday heroes who helped stop the attack, not fixated on the low-life attention seekers who carried it out."
Similarly, Kera Stewart said, rather than see the face of the attacker, she wanted to see the faces of the "brave, heroic pedestrians who took him down, disarmed him and saved people's lives."
On Twitter, Harvey Bateman added: "It takes a lot of courage to do something like that."
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Prime Minister Boris Johnson both offered their thanks to the general public for intervening.
Mr Johnson also praised emergency services while Mr Khan said, "They are the best of us."
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With Islamic State militants now inside the historic town of Palmyra in Syria, the question, inevitably, is whether they will destroy the ancient ruins.
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By Roland HughesBBC News
As IS continues to sweep through parts of Iraq and Syria, damage to centuries-old artefacts - because IS sees statues and shrines as idolatrous - is plentiful.
But history has shown that, when culturally important sites are under threat, people will find a way to rally round and save what they can.
Artefacts have been saved in the face of war, natural disaster and genocide - often with seemingly insurmountable logistics and threats to overcome.
Similar efforts have taken place in Palmyra, too.
But how straightforward is it to save what others are determined to destroy? And what are the crucial factors that can help save artefacts?
Mali
In 2012, Islamists seized the historic Malian city of Timbuktu. They started to destroy mausoleums, and banned singing, dancing and sport.
Valuable manuscripts dating back to the 13th Century were under threat - and they ended up being smuggled out of the city right under the Islamists' noses.
It took a group of determined Timbuktu residents, who raised money to pay for bribes and worked out when the militants slept in order to move the papers, mainly by boat.
Staff from two museums provided a safe house for the manuscripts in the capital, Bamako, and helped smuggle them out of Timbuktu in a complex operation.
For the Mali manuscripts to survive, it took co-ordination, planning, bravery and more than a little luck - in that the Islamists did not try to destroy them immediately.
Afghanistan
Years of conflict and Taliban rule saw Afghanistan's national museum in Kabul bombed and looted to such an extent it was feared that nothing valuable remained.
But, to very few people's knowledge, the museum's director and four other men stored 22,000 of the most valuable items in the vault.
It was locked by five keys, one of which went to each man - or to his eldest child if he died. Neither of the men said where the objects were stored - even when threatened at gunpoint.
Some objects were moved into the presidential palace on the orders of President Mohammad Najibullah, whose government fell in 1992.
A curator at the British Museum, where the objects went on show in 2011, said the men were "undoubtedly unsung heroes".
Sarajevo
During the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, the city's National Library was deliberately hit by shell fire, and at least two million books and documents were destroyed.
Many people rushed to the library to save what they could, despite sniper fire from surrounding hills.
But the fire also spurred the head of another library to take action. Mustafa Jahic led efforts to smuggle more than 100,000 books out of his building in banana crates, moving them between safe houses.
He also smuggled equipment through a tunnel near Sarajevo's airport that allowed him to microfilm rare documents.
What hope for Palmyra - and Syria?
The advance of IS towards Palmyra gave authorities plenty of warning - a factor that is crucial when it comes to saving priceless objects.
Maamoun Abdulkarim, the director general of Syria's antiquities and museums, said that hundreds of statues and other objects had been moved from Palmyra to safe-houses in Damascus.
"But how do you save colonnades that weigh a ton?" he said. "How do you save temples and cemeteries and, and, and?"
Similar work is being done elsewhere in Syria - largely to take objects out of looters' sights.
Cheikmous Ali is an archaeology professor and founder of the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology (Apsa), that monitors damage done to Syrian archaeological sites.
"In Aleppo, in particular, there are people who have done some amazing work to protect monuments," he said.
"There are laws that allow you to move artefacts abroad if they are under threat. You have some areas, like Idlib and its museum, that aren't under government control.
"But everything in its museum can't be moved to, for example, Turkey, as anyone who moves it would be considered a thief there and arrested. So everything is still there in Idlib."
The key to saving future archaeological sites is co-ordination, careful planning and an assessment of the safety of the site and of safe houses, said Zaki Aslan, a director of Iccrom, a UN-backed body that works to conserve cultural heritage.
He also urged anyone who wanted to protect rare objects to maintain contact with authorities and to catalogue them thoroughly.
"One can feel helpless but we should try to do something," he said.
"Unesco has called for people to co-operate, for even the people in the conflict to find ways.
"It will be a great loss if even some of the parts of Palmyra are lost. Not just for Syria, but for the world."
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An A&E department is due to reopen in response to falling Covid-19 admissions.
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As part of a recovery plan Cheltenham General A&E and other NHS services will restart over the next three months.
Cheltenham A&E was closed in early 2020 and emergency cases sent to Gloucester as part of the response to Covid-19.
Health professionals said they hope vaccinations will aid the drop in cases but will "remain cautious" and guided by the evidence.
Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust made the decision to reopen the Cheltenham A&E by no later than 1 July. during a meeting on 2 March.
Other services to be reopened are the Aveta Birth Centre at Cheltenham General Hospital, from 8 March, and the Tewkesbury Minor Injury and Illness Unit (MIIU), from 1 April.
The trust's Medical Director, Dr Amjad Uppal, said the trust needed to be "cautious" and "cannot risk going backwards" when restarting services.
He said: "These changes have worked so far and we think another few months will support us as health services look to recover from the pandemic."
The plans for Gloucestershire also include:
'Significant pressure'
Director of Safety and Medical Director at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation, Trust Mark Pietroni, said the reopening plans would be guided by rates of transmission, hospital admissions and the "continued success of the vaccination programme".
Clinical Chair of the NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, Dr Andy Seymour said: "We are not out of the woods by any means and the NHS still faces significant pressure.
"We believe that this three-month extension to a number of the temporary service changes is a pragmatic and proportionate step."
Related Internet Links
Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust
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A plan to update the security around some of the net's core address books has been delayed.
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Net administrative body Icann put its plans on hold after it emerged that some ISPs and large firms were not ready to make the change.
It feared that tens of millions would lose net access if the change went ahead as planned on 11 October.
Icann said it was working with ISPs to update software and ensure everyone is ready to switch next year.
"It would be irresponsible to proceed with the roll [out] after we have identified these new issues that could adversely affect its success and could adversely affect the ability of a significant number of end users," said Goran Marby, head of Icann.
Trusted information
Since early 2017, Icann (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been preparing to update the cryptographic keys used to ensure that information about web domain names can be trusted.
The Domain Name System Icann oversees can be thought of as the net's address books and they help to turn the written names for websites that humans use into the numeric equivalents that computers prefer.
Many organisations have turned to a secure version of DNS, known as DNS SEC, because it helps them avoid many attacks cyber-thieves use to hijack traffic to popular sites. About 750 million people browse the web using information provided by DNS SEC servers.
Icann has been distributing new keys to DNS SEC users for months. It planned for all of them to start using the new keys on 11 October.
But an investigation by the net admin body found that many organisations were running versions of DNS SEC that had not updated properly or did not have the new keys in place ready to use. It said it was not clear why some versions of DNS SEC had not been updated as expected.
Icann has now started contacting ISPs and firms that were not ready to ensure their software is updated as expected. No fixed date has yet been given for when the new keys will be used but it said it hoped it would be completed by the end of March 2018.
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Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies mistakenly shot and killed a teenager when a bullet ricocheted off the pavement during a dog attack, they say.
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The 17-year-old died when a "skip" round struck him in the chest at around 03:40 local time on Thursday.
Two officers fired shots at the dog, which moments earlier had bitten one officer's knee. It had been restrained by the boy, but had broken free again.
An officer was also hit in the leg by a bullet fragment, investigators say.
Los Angeles Sheriff Captain Christopher Bergner said Armando Garcia-Muro's death was "an extremely, extremely unfortunate incident".
"Our initial impression was [the deputies] didn't even see the individual coming around from the side of the building," he said during a press conference near the location where the shooting occurred in the city's Palmdale neighbourhood.
Armando was about to enter his final year of high school.
"He would give his life for anybody... He was a very loving person", the boy's mother told the LA Times, adding that he loved dogs.
Cpt Bergner said the dog was an adult male pit bull, weighing approximately 65lb (29kg), and was 5-7ft away from deputies when they opened fire.
He said that five officers had arrived at the residence on Thursday morning after receiving reports of a loud party.
The dog attacked deputies, who then retreated to call for backup and medical support, but it then attacked again, officers stated.
After being struck by bullets, the dog retreated, and officers following to be sure that it was contained and unable to attack again.
That's when they discovered Armando's body, about 30ft (10 metres) behind where the dog had been.
Deputies provided medical aid at the scene. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he died.
The dog, which survived the shooting, has been euthanised.
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Steam enthusiasts have been warned of the dangers of trespassing on railway lines or using drones as the Flying Scotsman prepares to visit Scotland.
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The iconic steam locomotive will arrive at Edinburgh Waverley late on Saturday ahead of a tour of Fife.
Police and transport officials said drone use was not permitted within 50m of the line and onlookers should stay well away from the tracks.
This will be the engine's second visit to Scotland since its restoration.
The Flying Scotsman, which is based at the National Railway Museum in York, made its first post-restoration visit to Scotland a year ago.
Hundreds of enthusiasts lined the route and were later praised for their responsible behaviour.
The engine's inaugural run in northern England in February last year, however, was marred when some fans put themselves in danger.
Network Rail had to pay out almost £60,000 in compensation when 59 train services were delayed by people encroaching on to the track.
Additional staff will be deployed at key stations and along the engine's route for the locomotive's latest visit to Scotland.
The Network Rail helicopter will be scanning for trespassers ahead of the Flying Scotsman's arrival.
Alex Sharkey, head of operations for the ScotRail Alliance, said: "It is extremely dangerous and illegal for the public to trespass on the railway and those who plan to enjoy seeing Flying Scotsman must ensure they do so from a safe position.
"We will continue to operate a full service, with hundreds of other trains running on our lines throughout the time Flying Scotsman is in Scotland, and members of the public must not enter the operational railway under any circumstances."
Ch Insp Sue Maxwell, from British Transport Police, said anyone caught trespassing on a railway could end up with a criminal record and a fine of up to £1,000.
She added: "We understand that the return of Flying Scotsman is an exciting event. However, we want you to view the iconic steam train safely, and there are lots of safe places to see it and take photographs.
"Please do not be tempted to stray on to the railway and risk your safety. Trespassing is also likely to delay the train. Stations along the route may be extremely busy, so listen to the staff who are there to assist you."
The Flying Scotsman was the first steam engine officially authenticated at travelling at 100mph in November 1934 though it had been claimed that another engine, City of Truro, travelled at 102mph in 1904. There was no second timekeeper on the earlier run and the record has long been disputed.
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A Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) minister has said he is no doubt there will be a deal to resolve Northern Ireland's political crisis.
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Simon Hamilton said the question was how comprehensive the agreement would be and how many parties will back it.
He was speaking after further talks between the main political parties and the British and Irish governments.
Negotiations have been taking place over welfare reform, paramilitaries and the Troubles legacy.
Mr Hamilton said he did not think at this stage "we're in any doubt that there will be an agreement".
"I am hopeful - we have made progress and we continue to make progress," he said.
"Yes, there are some issues that are still outstanding and we will work away at resolving those, but I am optimistic that we will get an agreement."
Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers said it had been "another intensive week of negotiations" and that talks would resume at Stormont on Monday morning.
"Progress has been made but some fundamental issues are still to be resolved," she said.
"We remain hopeful that an agreement can be achieved."
Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said he was encouraged by the progress that had been made "across a range of issues".
But he added that agreement still had to be reached in some areas.
"I encourage all the parties to continue their positive engagement," he said.
"With collective commitment and leadership on the part of all involved, a positive outcome can be achieved."
It is understood that one of the sticking points in discussions about the legacy of the Troubles centres on the issue of national security and disclosure of information on the role played by the security forces and intelligence agencies.
The story of Stormont's crisis
Earlier, Sinn Féin chairman Declan Kearney accused the two governments of blocking progress.
He accused the Irish government of playing a "subservient role by aiding and abetting the primacy of these British state interests".
SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell said any deal would have to be one all of the five main parties could agree on.
"This can't be an ambush," he said.
"We're looking for a five-party deal with five parties and two governments signing up to a deal that's sustainable, that we're not back here next May or June."
Inter-party talks began in September to resolve the current political crisis.
The crisis at Stormont was triggered when police said they believed IRA members had been involved in the murder of a former IRA man.
The parties have also been deadlocked over the issue of welfare reform.
They had agreed on a welfare reform deal in December but Sinn Féin withdrew its support in March.
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One of the world's leading credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, has downgraded the United States' top-notch AAA rating for the first time ever.
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S&P cut the long-term US rating by one notch to AA+ with a negative outlook, citing concerns about budget deficits.
The agency said the deficit reduction plan passed by the US Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough.
Correspondents say the downgrade could erode investors' confidence in the world's largest economy.
It is already struggling with huge debts, unemployment of 9.1% and fears of a possible double-dip recession.
The downgrade is a major embarrassment for the administration of President Barack Obama and could raise the cost of US government borrowing.
This in turn could trickle down to higher interest rates for local governments and individuals.
However, some analysts said with debt woes across much of the developed world, US debt remained an attractive option for investors.
The other two major credit rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch, said on Friday night they had no immediate plans to follow S&P in taking the US off their lists of risk-free borrowers.
'Flawed judgement'
Officials in Washington told US media that the agency's sums were deeply flawed.
Unnamed sources were quoted as saying that a treasury official had spotted a $2 trillion [£1.2 trillion] mistake in the agency's analysis.
"A judgment flawed by a $2tn error speaks for itself," a US treasury department spokesman said of the S&P analysis. He did not offer any immediate explanation.
John Chambers, chairman of S&P's sovereign ratings committee, told CNN that the US could have averted a downgrade if it had resolved its congressional stalemate earlier.
"The first thing it could have done is raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner so the debate would have been avoided to begin with," he said.
International reaction to the S&P move has been mixed.
China, the world's largest holder of US debt, had "every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets," said a commentary in the official Xinhua news agency.
"International supervision over the issue of US dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country," the commentary said.
However, officials in Japan, South Korea and Australia have urged a calm response to the downgrade.
The S&P announcement comes after a week of turmoil on global stock markets, partly triggered by fears over the US economy's recovery and the eurozone crisis.
S&P had threatened the downgrade if the US could not agree to cut its federal debt by at least $4tn over the next decade.
Instead, the bill passed by Congress on Tuesday plans $2.1tn in savings over 10 years.
S&P said the Republicans and Democrats had only been able to agree "relatively modest savings", which fell "well short" of what had been envisaged.
The agency also noted that the legislation delegates the lion's share of savings to a bipartisan committee, which must report back to Congress in November on where the axe should fall.
The bill - which also raises the federal debt ceiling by up to $2.4tn, from $14.3tn, over a decade - was passed on Tuesday just hours before the expiry of a deadline to raise the US borrowing limit.
S&P said in its report issued late on Friday: "The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilise the government's medium-term debt dynamics.
"More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges."
The agency said it might lower the US long-term rating another notch to AA within the next two years if its deficit reduction measures were deemed inadequate.
S&P noted that the bill passed by Congress this week did not include new revenues - Republicans had staunchly opposed President Barack Obama's calls for tax rises to help pay off America's deficit.
The credit agency also noted that the legislation contained only minor policy changes to Medicare, an entitlement programme dear to Democrats.
"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed," it added.
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The company behind the UK's first horizontal fracking operation has announced six "commitments" which it claims will ensure Lancashire benefits.
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Cuadrilla's plans for fracking at its Preston New Road site at Little Plumpton were approved in October.
The firm says it will put Lancashire first for creating jobs, new skills, investment, and community initiatives.
Opponents said they were surprised by the news since a legal challenge to the government's decision is outstanding.
Preston New Road Action Group issued formal legal proceedings at the High Court in November.
Cuadrilla's commitments
Cuadrilla said an "independently audited tracker" will monitor its pledges to Lancashire.
Chief executive Francis Egan said the shale gas industry would be good for the county's economy.
"We expect that in the exploration phase alone we will spend in the order of £50m - clearly all of that will not go to Lancashire... but we would hope that up to half of that money could get spent in Lancashire," he said.
The firm also said Bolton-based civil engineering firm AE Yates Ltd has been awarded the site's £1.5m building contract.
Work is expected to start early next year, Cuadrilla said.
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Motorists have been warned to take care on the roads as fog and ice continue to affect commuters in Scotland.
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Police issued the advice to drivers after the Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for fog.
The warning was in place until 10:00 on Monday with affected regions including Tayside, Fife, south west Scotland, the Scottish Borders and Strathclyde.
Met Office forecasters said temperatures would be at or just below freezing for much of Scotland.
Scotland TranServ said it had 32 gritters out in force on Monday.
Road Policing Scotland used Twitter to urge motorists to prepare their vehicles for the colder weather.
Traffic Scotland also tweeted to warn drivers of the freezing conditions.
Meanwhile several ferry services may face cancellation due to poor visibility.
Argyll Ferries have suspended their service between Gourock and Dunoon.
A spokesman added: "The weather conditions will be reviewed continuously throughout the day."
The CalMac service from WemyssBay to Rothesay has been cancelled while services from Colintraive to Rhubodach and Largs to Milport may also be scrapped.
The Met Office tweeted: "It's a frosty morning across much of Scotland with temperatures at or just below freezing.
"Quite a contrast to southwest England where temperatures are still in double figures."
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Members of the Scottish Parliament have voted to reject calls for Donald Trump's business interests in Scotland to be investigated.
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The Scottish Greens had wanted the Trump Organisation's golf courses probed via an unexplained wealth order.
It requires individuals to explain the source of wealth used to acquire property and other assets in the UK.
Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said it would be an abuse of power for MSPs to tell prosecutors what to investigate.
The Scottish Greens motion at the Scottish Parliament was successfully amended by Mr Yousaf with the backing of SNP and Conservative MSPs to instead say there "must not be political interference in the enforcement of the law".
The bid by the Greens to have Scottish ministers petition the Court of Session to issue an unexplained wealth order into Mr Trump's purchase of the Turnberry golf resort and his development at Menie in Aberdeenshire had been supported by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Speaking ahead the debate, Mr Trump's son Eric Trump warned that the move could deter overseas investors.
Eric Trump, who is a trustee and executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said: "At a critical time when politicians should be focused on saving lives and reopening businesses in Scotland, they are focused on advancing their personal agendas.
"The Trump Organisation has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the Scottish economy, rescued Turnberry, and rebuilt it into one of the finest resorts anywhere in the world.
"In both Aberdeen and Turnberry, the Trump Organisation has created thousands of jobs and has made an overwhelming contribution to the leisure and tourism industry."
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said there were "serious concerns" about how Donald Trump financed the cash purchases of his Scottish golf courses.
Mr Harvie said: "As entertaining as Eric Trump's tantrum is, he doesn't say where his dad got the money to buy his Scottish golf courses, which is exactly why I'm calling on the Scottish government to seek an unexplained wealth order."
He latter criticised SNP and Conservatives MSPs for blocking his bid.
Mr Harvie added: "Scotland cannot be a country where anyone with the money can buy whatever land and property they want, no questions asked, and the Scottish Greens will continue to challenge vested interests that protect people like Trump rather than our communities."
'Nonsense'
But Sarah Malone, executive vice president of Trump International Scotland, described the debate as an "utter waste of parliamentary time" and accused Mr Harvie of "grandstanding".
She added: "We thank those MSPs who rejected this nonsense and will, hopefully, now focus on getting the nation vaccinated and all of us - including businesses - back to work and back to normality as soon as possible."
A Scottish government spokesman said earlier this week: "Any decision on whether to apply to the Court of Session for an unexplained wealth order is made on behalf of Scottish ministers by the Civil Recovery Unit (CRU) which reports to the Lord Advocate."
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Government plans to relax Sunday trading laws in England and Wales have been put on hold, after SNP opposition meant it faced defeat in the Commons.
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The SNP had said it would vote against the changes amid fears it could drive down Scottish workers' wages.
With other opposition MPs expected to join forces with some 20 Tory rebels, the plans would have struggled to pass.
The BBC's James Landale said the idea had been parked while talks continue with opposition parties.
'No U-turn'
Angus Robertson, the SNP's Westminster leader, welcomed the government's "U-turn".
He told the BBC the party supported Sunday trading but not "on the back of often lower-paid shop staff", and said it would be "open to discussions" on how to ensure safeguards.
Downing Street said there had been "absolutely" no U-turn on the policy.
The prime minister's official spokeswoman said the next steps would await analysis of the results of a consultation and be made clear "in due course".
Chancellor George Osborne promised in the Budget earlier this year that councils and mayors would get the power to set Sunday trading laws in their areas.
Large stores and supermarkets can currently open for only six hours every Sunday.
'No pay safeguards'
Although the legislation affects only England and Wales, the SNP had been convinced by shopworkers' union Usdaw that retailers would pay for the extra hours by cutting wages across the UK - including those of Scottish workers currently being paid premium wages for Sunday work.
Mr Robertson said the government would have to go away and think again about its proposals.
"We want safeguards, we want guarantees, we want to make sure that shop workers in Scotland and the rest of the UK are not worse off," he told the BBC News Channel.
The government launched a consultation over the summer to look at the changes which are designed to support High Streets and shopping centres by allowing them to stay open for longer at weekends and compete with internet shopping.
Shops in Scotland already have more freedom because the Sunday Trading Act does not apply north of the border.
Government sources pointed out that Scotland already controls its Sunday trading rules and the SNP was once again trying to block something that had no impact on their constituents. They said the SNP move once again made the case for the government's recent changes to parliamentary rules that gave English and Welsh MPs greater control over laws that affect only their constituencies.
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Plans for a major new distillery in Speyside have been approved by Moray councillors.
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The French-owned Chivas Brothers Ltd, part of Pernod Ricard, wants to build on the site of the Imperial distillery near Carron, which has not been used for 14 years.
The original distillery buildings have already been demolished.
Planning and regulatory services committee chairman Douglas Ross said the new distillery would be welcome.
It would mean an increase of 10% in the company's malt whisky distilling capacity.
Chivas is the second biggest company in Scotch whisky, with about 20% of the market.
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An operation to combat sheep worrying has been launched by police in Lancashire after dog attacks left two sheep dead and three seriously injured.
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Operation Flock will see officers around Burnley carry out increased patrols to reassure farmers and educate dog owners.
Farmers in the Hurstwood area have contacted police with concerns about dogs chasing and attacking their sheep.
PC Fran Fleming said owners needed to "act responsibly" in rural areas.
Local farmer Michael Holmes said that most owners thought their dog would not "chase and attack sheep, or any other animal for that matter, but unfortunately they will".
"After all, most dogs still have a bit of wolf in them," he said.
A police spokesman said a recent incident had resulted in sheep being pursued and attacked, leaving them with "horrendous injuries".
He said one sheep had been so frightened, "it ran into deep water where it is believed to have drowned or died from its injuries".
Ms Fleming said allowing a dog to attack sheep could have serious penalties, including large fines and even imprisonment for dog owners or those in control of a dog.
"Apart from the distress and harm the animals are suffering, there is the financial loss with each sheep and its lambs, which are worth up to £120," she said.
"Farmers have the right to shoot any dog which is worrying or attacking their animals.
"By worrying, we don't just mean attacking the animals physically, but running after them and chasing them around especially when they are all carrying young lambs.
"I urge dog owners to act responsibly and keep their dog under control and on a lead at all times."
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The government has been urged to do more to help performers and other arts freelancers as venues are shut again during lockdowns in England and Wales.
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Labour MP Chris Elmore told the House of Commons there were "growing numbers of freelancers, musicians, performance artists who are excluded" from support.
Theatre workers face "adding to the queues at food banks", another MP said.
Arts minister Caroline Dinenage said the government was "working very hard" to help freelancers access support.
She said Arts Council England had allocated £119m for individuals, on top of the £1.57bn available to venues in England through the government's Culture Recovery Fund.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden acknowledged that a third of freelancers in all walks of life had not been able to access the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, which the government confirmed on Thursday would be extended to cover 80% of average trading profits.
"I understand the many challenges faced by freelancers and I hear about it every day," Mr Dowden said. "It is the case that across the economy 66% of freelancers are able to benefit from the Treasury scheme, which has been increased again by the chancellor."
'Exodus of talent'
Responding to Chancellor Rishi Sunak's announcement, Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, said she was "delighted" but that "expanding the eligibility criteria remains essential for preventing an exodus of highly skilled talent from our world-leading arts sector".
The Musicians' Union said the extension of SEISS was "fantastic news for many of our members", but added that it was "time to close the gaps in support" that it said 38% of musicians had fallen through.
The Equity performers' union has said 40% of members were ineligible for SEISS, and warned last week that "the trickle of lost talent will become a flood".
Speaking in the House of Commons earlier on Thursday, Labour MP Ruth Cadbury said she had been contacted by West End performers, make-up artists, instrumentalists and others who had been struggling to survive on benefits after being ineligible for other support.
"Here in west London, Universal Credit barely [covers] or fails to cover the cost of rent, meaning they now face going through lockdown with no additional support and adding to the queues at food banks," she said.
Mr Elmore said: "There are growing numbers of freelancers, musicians, performance artists who are excluded from getting any support from government… and there are growing numbers of organisations calling for support specifically for musicians."
Freelancers 'will benefit'
In response, Ms Dinenage said: "Our world-beating cultural and creative industries are absolutely nothing without the people who work in them, and we're working very hard to help freelancers in those sectors to access support, particularly if they don't qualify for the SEISS.
"Arts Council England has made £119m available to individuals, £23m of that has already been distributed and about £96m is still available to apply for."
She added that the Culture Recovery Fund would "benefit freelancers because it does enable organisations to be assisted to reopen, and to restart performances, maybe in a digital or live stream capacity".
The National Audit Office reported last month that up to 2.9 million people had fallen through the cracks of the furlough and SEISS schemes.
Also in October, the charity Help Musicians published the results of a survey saying more than half of musicians were not earning anything at all from music, and that four in five were worried about being able to pay their household bills.
Before the latest lockdown, 22% of businesses in the arts, entertainment and recreation industry had temporarily closed or paused trading - more than in any other sector; and the industry had the highest proportion of its workforce on furlough, at 27%, according to the Office For National Statistics.
Meanwhile on Thursday, singer Van Morrison launched The Lockdown Financial Hardship Fund for musicians, and started a petition calling on the Northern Ireland Executive to provide a timeline for live music to resume.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has apologised to a former political adviser who has alleged she was raped by a senior colleague in a minister's office in parliament.
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Brittany Higgins said she had feared losing her job after the 2019 incident, and had little support from her bosses.
Ms Higgins, 26, spoke out in a TV interview on Monday that has prompted shock and outrage over her treatment.
Mr Morrison apologised for the government's handling of her complaint.
The allegations are now under a renewed police investigation.
Mr Morrison said he was "shattered" by her claims, and had called for a review into parliament's environment and culture.
"I hope Brittany's call is a wake-up call for all of us," he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
But Mr Morrison also drew criticism for saying he understood the allegations better after considering them as a father of two girls.
What does Ms Higgins allege?
Ms Higgins, then 24, was a few weeks into a new job with Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds when she went out for drinks with a group including her alleged attacker, an older male colleague.
She said she was offered her a lift home by the man at the end of the night, but instead he took her to Parliament House.
Ms Higgins said she was drunk and fell asleep in the minister's office, before waking to find the man sexually assaulting her.
"I woke up mid-rape essentially," she told Network Ten. "I started crying... I told him to stop."
She said the man left immediately afterwards.
After informing her employer, Ms Higgins felt Ms Reynolds' office tried to "manage" the situation, downplaying her trauma.
"It felt like I became... it immediately became a political problem," she said.
Ms Higgins said Ms Reynolds told her she would be supported if she pursued a police complaint, but she felt pressured not to, believing it would end her career.
She said the meeting with the minister was also held in the room where the alleged attack took place.
"There was a loop happening in my mind of this trauma that I'd just sort of come to terms with and I thought it was unfathomable that they would put me in such a place again," she said.
Ms Higgins said her alleged attacker had been considered a "rising star" of the party.
She worked for another minister in Mr Morrison's Liberal Party before quitting politics.
What was the PM's response?
Mr Morrison apologised specifically for the meeting in Ms Reynolds' office, where Ms Higgins alleges the rape took place.
He said such an event "should not have happened", saying it would spark a review of the complaints procedure in parliament.
The prime minister also announced a review into the professional culture of parliament, saying problems crossed over party lines.
"I want to make sure that any young woman working in this place is as safe as possible," he said.
Mr Morrison said that he had discussed Ms Higgins' allegations with his wife, who had helped him "clarify" his views.
"She said to me: 'You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?'"
His comments have drawn much criticism online from women who suggested that Mr Morrison should not need to do that.
"It should not take a man having a daughter for him to treat women who've been assaulted with empathy and respect," wrote author Jamila Rizvi on Twitter.
What does this show about Australian politics?
Australian politics has long faced accusations of being a hostile environment for women.
Ms Higgins' case has refocused public scrutiny on the experience of women in Canberra, in particular within the ruling conservative party. It has previously been accused of covering up sexual misconduct.
Before the 2019 general election, Mr Morrison denied his party had a "women problem", after the departure of several female lawmakers.
One of those ex-MPs, Julia Banks, tweeted on Monday: "Once again Parliament House proves itself to be the most unsafe, toxic workplace culture for women in the country."
Ms Higgins said she was motivated to speak out about her experience after an ABC investigation last year aired allegations of inappropriate behaviour by government ministers.
At the time, Mr Morrison was also criticised for interrupting a female minister who was responding to a question about what it's like to be a woman in parliament.
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Homer Simpson has been named the greatest TV and film character of the last 20 years, according to a Entertainment Weekly survey.
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The cartoon character, best known for his love of eating, beat schoolboy wizard Harry Potter to the top slot.
People relate to Homer "because we're all secretly propelled by desires we can't admit to," creator Matt Groening told the US magazine.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, came third.
In fourth place was Tony Soprano from US drama series The Sopranos, followed by comic book villain The Joker, played by late Australian actor Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.
Other famous characters which were included in the top 10 were Rachel from Friends, Johnny Depp's Edward Scissorhands and Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter.
Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw from Sex And The City and cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants rounded out the list.
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Awareness about bowel cancer is still "stubbornly low" - despite it being the second biggest cause of cancer deaths in the UK, a study suggests.
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The Cancer Research UK-funded survey showed that many people did not know that lifestyle factors such as diet, weight and exercise affected risk.
The research, involving more than 1,500 people, also raised concerns about the lack of knowledge about symptoms.
Researchers said attitudes needed to change to get survival rates up.
Currently less than three quarters of the 40,000 people diagnosed each year in the UK survive for more than a year - lower than the European average.
Symptoms
This is partly to do with the low levels of early diagnosis.
It means 16,000 people die of the disease each year - the second highest for any cancer.
The survey, published in the journal BMC Cancer, found a quarter of people were unaware of any symptoms.
Less than one in 10 able were able to name anything other than changing bowel habits and blood in stools.
There was a similar lack of awareness about risk factors. One in five mentioned a close relative having the disease and alcohol consumption affecting risk, but less than one in 10 could name any others.
Dr Emily Power, who led the study, said: "This reveals that the public's awareness is still stubbornly low.
"Public health initiatives to increase awareness of risk factors are essential and not only for lowering cancer risk. Improving attitudes towards healthy behaviour can go some way towards reducing other diseases triggered by unhealthy lifestyles."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "Bowel cancer is one of the biggest cancer killers in England and we know one of the main reasons is because too many people are diagnosed late.
"That is why we trialled a campaign earlier this year, to raise awareness of the key signs and symptoms and to encourage people with them to visit their GP. We hope to launch a wider campaign shortly.
"We are also investing £60 million over the next four years to fund flexible sigmoidoscopy - a new screening technique for people around 55 - which will help save 3,000 lives every year.
"People aged 60 and over who have not been screened for bowel cancer should contact the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Helpline on 0800 707 6060."
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An Oxfordshire prison is "not safe enough" and urgently needs more staff, the prisons watchdog has warned.
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The HM Inspectorate of Prisons report said HMP Bullingdon had a drug and gang problem, and high levels of violence.
However, Peter Clarke, chief inspector of prisons, said many at the jail were "doing their best" to make things better.
HMP Bullingdon is a resettlement prison near Bicester, which houses 1,109 adult and young adult prisoners.
The findings follow unannounced inspections in April and May.
The inspectors found:
The last report in 2015 also referred to significant staff shortages at the 25-year-old prison.
Mr Clarke said: "The key message from this inspection was the urgent need for increased staffing.
"It was clear to us that this was a strategic problem that was undermining everything the prison was trying to do.
"Despite this... many - not least the governor - were doing their best to effect improvement and were proving capable in doing so.
"This suggested that there was cause for continued optimism."
Michael Spurr, chief executive of HM Prison & Probation Service, said: "The governor and his team are committed to improving outcomes for prisoners at HMP Bullingdon.
"The prison does need more staff and we are providing the governor with central support to accelerate recruitment of permanent staff."
He added that in the meantime additional prison officers would be provided from other establishments.
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A Pennsylvania court has acquitted a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed 17-year-old black teenager in the back.
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Michael Rosfeld, 30, shot 17-year-old Antwon Rose three times as he tried to flee police last June - just 90 minutes after the officer had been sworn in for duty.
He was charged with criminal homicide last year.
But the jury fully acquitted the officer on the fourth day of the trial.
They took fewer than four hours to make their decision.
Mr Rosfeld's lawyer, Patrick Thomassey, told reporters his client was "a good man", and said he hoped "everybody takes a deep breath and gets on with their lives".
Broadcaster WPXI says six to eight shots were fired into the lawyer's office on Friday night after the ruling. Nobody was hurt.
S Lee Merrit, lawyer for Rose's family, said the victim's mother "didn't really expect a different verdict" in light of rulings in similar cases elsewhere in the US.
Pittsburgh district attorney Stephen Zappala Jr said he disagreed with the court's decision.
In the wake of the verdict about 100 protesters reportedly blocked roads and read a poem written by Rose, while chanting his age.
The death of Antwon Rose is one of many high-profile cases of unarmed black men dying at the hands of white US police officers - cases that have ignited protests and civil unrest across the country.
What happened to Antwon Rose?
Officers stopped Rose's car because it matched the description of one sought in connection with a nearby shooting, police said. Rose was a passenger in the vehicle at the time.
When the driver was stopped and ordered out of the car, Rose and a second unidentified passenger ran away.
Rose was shot several times in the arm, face and abdomen from behind. He later died in hospital from his injuries.
The officers were not wearing body cameras at the time, but a video filmed by a bystander went viral and led to days of protests in Pittsburgh.
According to the criminal complaint, Mr Rosfeld first said he "saw something dark that he perceived as a gun," but witnesses said Rose had nothing in his hands.
Mr Rosfeld later changed his story, according to the detectives' complaint, saying he did not see a gun.
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The government will give MPs from English constituencies a new "veto" over laws affecting England only.
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Commons Leader Chris Grayling said the change, also applying in some cases to Welsh MPs, would bring "real fairness to our constitutional arrangements".
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon called the plan "staggering in the extent... of its hypocrisy and incoherence".
Labour said it was an "outrage" that ministers wanted to rush into making "profound constitutional change".
Shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle said the plans risked creating two classes of MPs and accused the Conservatives of a "cynical" attempt to "manufacture itself a very much larger" majority in the Commons.
Under the proposals, all MPs would continue to vote on all key stages of legislation.
But English MPs - and in some cases English and Welsh MPs - will have a veto in Westminster when debating matters that have been devolved to the devolved administrations.
MPs will debate the changes on 15 July, Mr Grayling said, and the system will be changed using the rules - known as standing orders - that dictate how Parliament conducts its business.
With more powers set to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament after September's independence referendum, Tory MPs have said it is not right that MPs representing Scottish constituencies can continue to determine laws affecting England only.
Mr Grayling told MPs that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were getting a "stronger voice" and that it was "only fair" to do the same for England.
The Speaker will be asked to certify which bills or parts of bills relate to England or England and Wales only, he said.
New system
There will be no changes in the House of Lords, Mr Grayling said. But where Lords amendments are certified as England or England and Wales only, a "double majority" system applies, meaning it will need a majority of both the whole House of Commons and MPs representing English or English and Welsh constituencies.
Tablet computers will be used to count MPs' votes as they walk through the voting lobbies so officials can instantly register whether they have used their veto in votes where the "double majority" rule applies.
To jeers from opposition benches, Mr Grayling said "Today we are answering the West Lothian Question", a reference to the constitutional anomaly that lets Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MP at Westminster vote on measures that only apply in England.
West Lothian Question
English votes: What's going on?
The SNP's Pete Wishart described the English votes policy as a "cobbled together unworkable mess", and said it was "totally unacceptable".
He said this policy showed that the Tories were doing their best to ensure Scotland would become an independent country.
His party leader Nicola Sturgeon said: "The Tories have produced a constitutional shambles - staggering in the extent of its hypocrisy and incoherence.
"Under these plans - which are all about cutting Scottish MPs out of votes which impact on Scotland and our budget - the Tories are proposing an 'English veto' and 'double majority'.
"I have been very clear that, at least in part, the level of support for independence will be determined by what the Tory government at Westminster does, as well as what the SNP Government does. And there is no question that the great disrespect shown to Scotland in these proposals is likely to have more people asking whether Westminster is capable of representing Scotland's interests at all."
Labour's Sir Gerald Kaufman, the father of the house, said the title of the motion, English votes for English laws, "sounds racist".
He added: "This government is undermining the whole basis of British democracy, right through from when the Magna Carta was signed."
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I have interviewed the Bank of England's chief economist Andy Haldane about how seriously he takes the risk of what Larry Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary, calls "secular stagnation".
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Robert PestonEconomics editor
This is the dour prospect that in the mature rich economies growth in the future will be much slower than it was in the decades before the crash (even though right now the UK is growing at an annual rate of 3% - which is similar to pre-crash levels).
Haldane made clear that this danger is very much on his radar. Here is what he told me.
Robert Peston: How big a risk is there that we are entering a prolonged period of low growth?
Andy Haldane: For the foreseeable future, those headwinds to growth will be with us. They'll be holding us back to a degree. Why is that? Because we are still paying for some of the cost of the [2008 financial and economic] crisis - debt levels still a bit too high, both out there among companies and households, but also among governments increasingly. And also because I think people are still scarred by the crisis, their appetite for taking risk has been diminished, possibly on a more durable basis. And both of those things near term will tend to drag growth back a bit.
RP: Are there other factors, common perhaps to a lot of Western countries, that hold back growth?
AH: There is definitely some risk of that. We are all living longer, and therefore perhaps need to save larger amounts to cushion us over retirement. There is at least a possibility in some people's minds that we might be less good at innovation, in the future than we have been in the past. And then there is inequality - is that providing a longer term headwind?
All those are factors people have discussed. They should not be discounted. As central banks there is not very much we can do about them, as it turns out. Except if they did turn out to be important, we'd be setting rates lower for longer, I think, than would have been the case pre-crisis.
RP: If you look at what bond markets are saying about growth prospects in the UK, based on the prices of UK government bonds, that looks pretty dour, pretty pessimistic. Are they right to be so pessimistic?
AH: It's a remarkable pattern. So, if you adjust for inflation those yields, those rates of interest on government securities, as you say, here in the UK, are not just negative, but negative as far as the eye can see.
One interpretation is just that people are scared. People are scarred by the risk of something else going wrong, and are seeking safety, safety almost at any price. The other is that this is telling us something about future growth prospects. It may be telling us that rates in future may be materially lower than they have been in the past, because growth is soggier than it has been in the past.
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A town's "rapid and worrying" rise in Covid-19 case could see it surpass its previous peak by the end of the week, its director of public health has said.
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According to Southend Borough Council, the infection rate in the town stood at 176.4 per 100,000 people as of 9 December, up from 115.8 on 29 November.
The council said it recorded its highest rate of 180.8 on 19 November.
"Our rates are going in the wrong direction," said its director of public health, Krishna Ramkhelawon.
Southend Hospital, where 12 ambulances were pictured queuing outside accident and emergency on Wednesday, said it was "extremely busy" with high numbers of patients.
It would not be drawn on the number of Covid-19 patients, but the council said there were 203 patients with the virus in Mid and South Essex hospitals as of 4 December, up from 145 the previous week.
This includes Basildon Hospital, which is dealing with one the country's highest infection rates of the virus, and Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.
The number of inpatients was now similar to that at the start of the pandemic, the council added.
'Strain on the system'
The Covid-19 infection rate in England fell slightly to 152.1 per 100,000 as of 5 December.
"Although our rate remains lower than some other areas locally and regionally, we are starting to see a worrying and rapid rise, and we expect to be above 200 per 100,000 by the end of the week, which would be the highest case rate we have seen locally," said Mr Ramkhelawon.
"Hospitals across Mid and South Essex are seeing a rise in Covid-19 admissions, which is putting a strain on the local system at a time of year when it is already busy and challenging.
"We must all remember that every positive case is a potential hospitalisation, and every hospitalisation could lead to the death of a loved one.
"We must also remember that someone can carry and spread this disease without showing symptoms.
"We should therefore treat other people from outside our household as a potential positive case and social distance accordingly.
"I cannot emphasise enough how important this is to prevent the virus spreading further."
What do I need to know about the coronavirus?
Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]
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Former Prime Minister David Cameron was asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether he had any regrets about calling the 2016 referendum and whether he did it for "party management reasons"?
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By Reality Check teamBBC News
Mr Cameron said "every party was under pressure on this issue... every single political party in Britain fought an election between 2005 and 2015 with a pledge to hold a referendum: the Labour party did, the Liberal Democrats did, the Greens did, UKIP of course did, we did."
Is he right?
What did the parties say?
Not every party consistently argued for a straightforward in/out referendum, with the option of leaving the EU altogether, in that time.
But it's true to say that membership of the EU as an issue for political parties pre-dated 2014.
That was the year that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) won the most votes in the European Parliamentary elections, sweeping away their far more established competitors.
"I've read so many times… that the referendum came about because the Tories got whacked by UKIP in the 2014 elections," Mr Cameron said.
But he denied this, saying that support for a referendum "wasn't a flash in the pan".
The Liberal Democrats, although staunchly opposed to the UK leaving the EU, were the first major political party to call for an in/out referendum.
Current leader of the party Jo Swinson said in Parliament in 2008 that the Liberal Democrats "would like to have a referendum on the major issue of whether we are in or out of Europe".
An official party leaflet from around this time also supported the idea.
The party's 2010 election manifesto said it remained committed to an in/out referendum "the next time a British government signs up for a fundamental change in the relationship" with the EU.
This wasn't an indication of the party wanting to leave - it said it still believed it was in Britain's long-term interests to join the euro - but it did say there were circumstances in which the terms of membership should be put to the people of Britain.
Similarly, the Green Party in 2010 supported proposals for an in/out referendum, saying: "It's yes to Europe, yes to reform of the EU but also yes to a referendum".
Labour supported a referendum on the terms of the UK's membership in its 2005 manifesto - although not a straightforward choice between leaving or remaining. It dropped this pledge in 2010.
Once a referendum had already been pledged by the Conservatives, in the 2015 election Labour stood on a manifesto of guaranteeing that there could be "no transfer of powers from Britain to the European Union without the consent of the British public through an in/out referendum".
As for the Conservative Party, it formally pledged an in/out referendum - with a time limit to deliver it - in 2015. The party had called for referendums on accepting elements of the EU constitution and on further transfers of power in 2005 and 2010.
In 2011, the coalition government established a so-called "referendum lock", creating a legal requirement to hold a referendum if any proposal were made to transfer further powers from the UK to the EU.
At a speech in 2013, Mr Cameron first suggested that he planned to hold a referendum in due course. He argued against holding an in-out referendum at that point, but said there should be time for a "proper, reasoned debated".
"At the end of that debate you, the British people, will decide," he said.
He indicated that he was in favour of remaining in a reformed EU.
What did the public think?
Since 1997, polling company Ipsos Mori has asked about 1,000 British voters every month which issues are the most important facing the country.
In the years leading up the 2016 referendum, Ipsos Mori's data shows Europe initially featured very low down on the public's list of concerns.
Soon after Mr Cameron became PM in 2010, for example, only 1% of British voters listed Europe as an important issue.
Despite the issue trending upwards in the years that followed, only 8% identified Europe as a concern in May 2014 - the month of the European elections.
But this seemingly low score may not tell the whole story.
While the economy dominated voters' minds in the early 2010s, immigration was also a significant and rising concern.
Michael Clemence, from Ipsos Mori, says that the two issues of Europe and immigration are likely to have been conflated as one in the minds of some voters around this time:
"Public concern about the EU (and what would later be called Brexit) stays pretty low until after the referendum vote in 2016."
"However, in the years prior to the referendum, concern about related issues was higher. For instance, immigration was the biggest worry for the British public in both 2014 and 2015," he says.
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Hundreds of beachgoers' smartphone photos are being gathered to track the impact of rising sea levels and climate change.
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By Amy GladwellBBC News Online
About 10 mobile phone mounts are being installed at key points across south-west England, for people to take pictures then upload them to a website.
The data, gathered by Plymouth Coastal Observatory (PCO), will be used to help authorities shape beach management.
It was a "fantastic idea" to engage people, the Environment Agency said.
Dawlish Warren in Devon, Porthmeor in St Ives, Cornwall, and West Bay in Dorset are among those to have the mounts.
The Environment Agency has secured funding from the South West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee for the CoastSnap project, which was inspired by a successful scheme in New South Wales, Australia, PCO said.
It aims to collect photos taken across varying tidal stages, linking beach erosion to weather conditions, the seasons and storms.
Joseff Saunders, Coastal Process Scientist from PCO, said: "Coastal erosion is a very real problem and it is going to become more apparent going forward."
He said seven phone stations had been put in place in 2020 after a pilot in 2019 and two to three more should be installed before the winter.
"It just exploded this summer after lockdown. Lots of people were out and about and we were getting upwards of 30 to 40 photos submitted a day. A couple of weeks ago we passed the 1,000 mark," he said.
An Environment Agency spokesman said: "We hope the data gained through CoastSnap will help us see how sea level rise and climate change are starting to impact our coast, and that they will enable us to make appropriate decisions about how to respond to these pressures in the future."
Where to find a CoastSnap Station
More stations are due to follow.
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Two bin men on the Isle of Wight have been praised for rescuing a woman who had fallen in her home.
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Refuse collectors Alex Wright and Kieran Hartnell saw a dog barking outside a house in Freshwater and heard the woman shouting.
When they found her she said she had fallen over and been stuck for several hours, so they helped her up and put her in a chair.
She contacted the men's employer, Amey, to thank them for their efforts.
Mr Wright said: "We saw a dog stood at the bottom of some steps barking a lot and thought something wasn't right. When we got to the steps, we could hear someone shouting for help.
"We discovered the cries were coming from a house with the door open, so we ensured our hands were sanitised and asked if she was happy we came inside to help her.
"We helped lift her from the ground and into a chair, and she explained she had fallen and had been there for several hours."
Mr Hartnell said: "We did what anyone else would of done in this situation.
"We would do the same for anyone and are just happy we were able to do our bit for the community, but most importantly that the lady is doing very well."
Recycling and waste councillor Steve Hastings said: "Without the intervention of Kieran and Alex, the situation could have been a lot worse, and we are very proud of their actions."
An Isle of Wight Council spokesman said the woman did not need require medical assistance after her fall.
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Accessing end-of-life care support can be "a struggle" but families are reluctant to complain, the chair of charity Compassionate Cymru has said.
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By Carys BetteleyBBC News
Lesley Bethell, 69, said having worked as a health policy researcher she knew the support available for her parents and in-laws when they died.
But in practice it was difficult to get it in place.
It comes as charity Marie Curie predicts a 42% increase in demand for end-of-life care by 2040.
The Welsh Government said it had extended funding to support the end-of-life care delivery plan to March 2022 and allocated £9.3m in emergency funding, as well as issuing advice and resources.
Ms Bethell, from Swansea, said: "I'm of an age where my parents and in-laws had reached the end of their lives with various conditions, three of them had dementia by the time they died."
As an academic at the time, she said it was "frustrating" writing papers about issues around health policy which may be read by a handful of people, but not seeing them being implemented.
"I knew the theory of what should happen ideally, and I expected that kind of support, but in practice it was much more difficult," she said.
Ms Bethell's mother and mother-in-law were in care homes, and had expressed a wish not to go to hospital - which was supported by the care homes.
But the homes struggled to access what they needed to respect these wishes.
"Both care homes were willing to support them to stay, but they were really struggling for advice and support for symptom relief and even to get expert advice about how to manage end of life for people who were frail and deteriorating over a period of time," Ms Bethell said.
While she stressed there were some "brilliant" primary care services available, she ended up going through the protracted process of making a complaint - but said this was a path many families cannot face.
"That complaint took ages and ages and was difficult to resolve.
"I spoke to others and was struck by how common the issue of not getting symptom relief was at the time, and how reluctant people were to complain.
"They're not people who feel comfortable complaining, and naturally people want to forget or put it behind them, and because making a complaint is protracted, it keeps dragging you back and in that way the concerns never get brought to the attention of people who might be able to do something about them."
Ms Bethell went through this process seven years ago, and her case ended up being brought to the attention of the health minister at the time, Mark Drakeford, who put her in touch with the End of Life Care Implementation Board.
She was then asked to sit on the board, and has been a member for five years now, as well as being chair of Compassionate Cymru.
"I've been able to raise concerns, it's nothing like as effective as I'd like but it's over a period of time that people get used to me being there and the relationship builds - it's a process that's happening over time.
"There's already much more acknowledgment of the importance of these issues."
'A stressful and dehumanising experience'
Ms Bethell felt she was now bridging the gap more between research going into end-of-life care and the practices being adopted, with a new national bereavement framework being worked on "informed by research".
"In my role and in my own life experience I am well aware of the awful consequences when services and support fail," she said.
Ceridwen Hughes, from Mold, whose mother chose to spend her last few weeks at home, said: "To navigate end-of life-care for a loved one can be a stressful and dehumanising experience, if co-ordinated care is not in place."
Marie Curie provides care and support to thousands of people living with a terminal illness and their loved ones, in its Cardiff and the Vale Hospice in Penarth and in their own homes across Wales.
But with services already stretched, it predicts a steep rise in people needing to access end-of-life care in England and Wales, from 375,398 to 469,305 people per year.
It said this was as a result of a predicted rise in the number of deaths, along with increases in the numbers of people suffering with illnesses such as dementia and cancer.
That is why the charity is calling on political parties to include plans for an end-of-life care strategy in Senedd election manifestos.
BBC News approached each political party, and Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Independent Alliance for Reform Group confirmed they would include a strategy as a manifesto commitment.
Welsh Labour pointed to the end-of-life delivery plan it has been implementing in government, but said its manifesto for the election is not yet finalised. The Welsh Conservatives said their manifesto too is still in development, but confirmed palliative care was a priority for the party.
The Abolish the Welsh Assembly party said it would not be included in the manifesto, due to it being a one-policy party.
Sian Tucker, acting clinical nurse manager for the charity's hospice at home service, said: "Every patient... during the first wave and now during this second wave, have been really poorly and deteriorated really quickly.
"Everyone involved is doing the best they can, it's just difficult with current manpower in all the health services, people are shielding, or they're in self-isolation, and that makes it even more difficult when services are stretched.
"Covid has had a huge impact."
Lowri Griffiths from the charity added: "Dying, death and bereavement are unavoidable and an inevitability that every individual will face as part of the cycle of life.
"Coronavirus has both highlighted and exacerbated many challenges faced by those who use palliative care services, and those working within the field.
"Never has it been more important to have a well-resourced health and social care service, with a workforce that feels supported and equipped to deliver accessible and value-based end-of-life care."
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: "Hospices in Wales provide incredibly important services and we recognise the enormous contribution that they make to end of life care and the support they provide to patients, families and carers."
Related Internet Links
Marie Curie
Compassionate Communities UK
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A British author is claiming to have unearthed a previously unseen portrait of Pride And Prejudice writer Jane Austen.
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Dr Paula Byrne, the author of a new book on Austen, was given the portrait by her husband and recognised the long, straight "Austen nose".
There are currently just two recognised portraits of Austen - one sketched by her sister Cassandra in 1810.
The find is the subject of a BBC Two documentary scheduled for Boxing Day.
Byrne - who has previously written books on poet Mary Robinson and author Evelyn Waugh - was presented with the portrait by her husband, Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate, who had bought it at auction.
The pencil drawing on vellum is inscribed "Miss Jane Austin" on the back. Byrne insists that "apart from the striking family resemblance", this was the first clue as to the identity of the sitter.
It remains a mystery why the picture, which is thought to have been drawn around 1815, has not been authenticated before.
Speaking to the BBC, Byrne said: "When Jane Austen was writing, she wrote her novels anonymously. People didn't really know who she was at all and even after her death, when her name appears in print for the first time, she's not at all popular."
The first image recognised as Austen was a watercolour painted by her sister. That sketch was then adapted for the front cover of her 1870 biography by artist James Andrews.
The portrait is described by Byrne as "very Victorian, sentimentalised and saccharine".
With a book on Austen ready for release, sceptics may suggest that the timing of the new find is beneficial publicity for Byrne.
However, she told the BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz: "We wanted to open up all possibilities and open all angles.
"We consulted various experts from art historians to fashion experts to forensic analysts and then we put our findings to three of the top Austen scholars in the world."
"Two out of the three do believe that this could be Jane Austen and it presents a very professional woman writer at the height of her creative powers.
"They believe it dates to about 1815, before Austen died in 1817."
Janice Hadlow, controller of BBC Two said the documentary "will be a fascinating chance for the audience to delve deeper into the life of one of Britain's best-loved authors".
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A woman says her family has been subjected to "nasty abuse and open racism" after organising a Black Lives Matter protest in Shepton Mallet.
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Deb Rossiter found offensive posters depicting 1960s-era black dolls pinned up outside her business.
She helped to organise a demonstration in Collett Park on Saturday and said she was surprised at "the level of hate and contempt for our little protest".
Avon and Somerset Police say they are investigating a public order offence.
Mrs Rossiter, from Evercreech, helped to organise the gathering along with her daughter and son-in-law, who is black.
About 100 people attended the event including her grandson Kairo who sang to the crowd.
"Unfortunately it was not well-received and we have suffered some very nasty abuse and open racism.
"I don't think we were hugely surprised, but we were surprised at the level of hate and contempt. We said all along we wanted a peaceful family protest and that's what we had," said Mrs Rossiter.
The posters of black dolls dating from the 1960s - now widely seen as having racist overtones - were pinned to a telegraph pole outside the business she runs with her husband in Pylle, with a note reading "my new family".
'Quite unfriendly'
Mrs Rossiter said that despite suffering "awful abuse" there had also been "amazing support" within the community.
She said: "I'm not an activist, I'm just a normal woman who wanted to stand up and support a minority.
"There is a good side to Shepton and had it embraced the movement it could have been seen as a more forward-thinking, inclusive town, but at the moment it is looking quite unfriendly, which is sad for me because it is a great place."
Avon and Somerset Police said they believed the posters were put up between Sunday morning and 10:00 BST on Monday.
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In our series of letters by African journalists, novelist and writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani blows her vuvuzela for Nigeria's Super Falcons.
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Last week, Nigeria's national women's football team, the Super Falcons, secured a place in the 10th Africa Women's Cup of Nations scheduled to take place in Cameroon later this year.
Three weeks ago, their male counterparts, the Super Eagles, failed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations kicking off in Gabon at the start of 2017.
The Falcons are Africa's reigning champions; the Super Eagles have failed to qualify on two consecutive occasions.
Nigerians cannot be too surprised at the disparity of performance between our male and female teams.
Reality TV
Anyone who cared to look would have seen it coming.
The men's team sometimes comes across as a reality TV show rather than professionals who have been hired to win honour for their country.
There is always some new drama when it comes to keeping up with the Super Eagles.
In the past 12 months alone, the men's football team has had three different coaches.
Each replacement was heralded by incessant bickering between the coach and his players, and with the sport's national federation.
In October, goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama suddenly announced his retirement from the national team a day after he was officially stripped of the captain's armband by coach Sunday Oliseh.
Oliseh himself became the focus of the cameras in February, when a rant he posted on YouTube went viral.
Staring straight into the camera, with what appeared to be family photos in the background, he accused some of the team's critics as "insane" for expecting Nigeria to win every single match, then concluded the almost three-minute tirade with a heartfelt prayer for God to bless the critics with the same apparent ill-will that they wish the Eagles.
Oliseh was soon replaced by the current acting coach, Samson Siasia.
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani:
"The Nigerian Football Federation's poor treatment of the women's football team is just another example of the enormous inequality that Nigerian women suffer in many sectors of society"
In sharp contrast, the Nigeria women's football team go about their business without much drama.
The one time they attracted the kind of embarrassing attention that typically comes to Nigeria from their male counterparts was in June 2015, when their coach, Edwin Okon, apparently refused to shake hands with US coach, Jill Ellis, who approached him with her hand outstretched after Nigeria lost a match to her team.
But then, Okon is a man.
Bonus row
The Super Falcons have won the women's Africa Nations Cup - formerly known as the African Women's Championship - more than any other country - an impressive nine times.
They have also made it to every Women's World Cup since the Fifa competition began in 1991.
But despite the women's team being a sure-fire powerhouse in Africa, who continue to do their country proud, the Nigerian Football Federation does not seem to think that the women's team deserves to be treated well.
News reports stated that the Falcons were handed a paltry 10,000 naira each ($50, £35) after they successfully booked a ticket to the 2016 Africa Women's Cup of Nations.
This is in contrast with the men's team, whose players get paid $4,000 each for a draw and $5,000 for a win.
The women are also reportedly still owed their bonuses for qualifying for last year's World Cup in Canada.
None of this is new.
Back in 2010, Nigerian sport journalist Nnamdi Okosieme reported extensively on how the Falcons had been playing for peanuts.
The women received $500 for every match won at the World Cup, while the men got $30,000.
And, while the male team were lodged in five-star hotels, the women's team was regularly kept in substandard accommodation, he said.
The Nigerian Football Federation's poor treatment of the women's football team is just another example of the enormous inequality that Nigerian women suffer in many sectors of society.
The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September by UN member states, including Nigeria, offer a unique opportunity to address many of these issues.
Sports can be an important enabler for development and women's empowerment.
Bridging the treatment gap between the country's men's and women's football teams is a good place for the Nigerian government to display its official commitment to gender equality.
So let's blow the whistle on such sexism - and celebrate all our "Super" sporting successes.
More from Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani:
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Olympic gold medallist Sally Gunnell has joined about 200 people to protest against plans to demolish a West Sussex leisure centre and athletics track.
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Horsham District Council approved a £7.3m replacement for the Broadbridge Heath Leisure Centre, which is in need of repairs, on Wednesday night.
Local residents carrying posters and banners gathered outside the council chamber in Horsham to hear the outcome.
Ms Gunnell said the town should not be left without a running track.
"The track at Broadbridge Heath was very much part of my life when I was training and it still is now.
"We haven't got enough tracks in the whole of the country. So many of them are getting run down and are not being used.
"I feel very passionate that we're trying to inspire people, we're trying to have the whole legacy of the Games and we're not able to do that without an athletics club and a track," Ms Gunnell said.
'Track site sought'
Other residents campaigning outside the meeting of the full council claimed the existing leisure centre was irreplaceable and the new facility would be inadequate.
The council has said the replacement facility, on a site south of the current centre, would be more economical to run and more cost effective.
It is subject to the sale of the existing leisure centre land, but the plans include a combined leisure and indoor bowls building, along with a commitment to provide an outdoor athletics track once a site can be found.
Councillor Jonathan Chowen, cabinet member for arts, heritage and leisure, said final plans on what the new site would look like had yet to be completed.
"What we've said so far is this is the minimum you're going to get... it's going to give us something brand new fit for the 21st Century."
He added that providing an athletics track was the council's biggest priority.
"We haven't actually got a site where it's going to go, that's going to be the next question."
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DIY chain Homebase has been sold for just £1 , after its Australian owner Wesfarmers decided to abandon its disastrous foray into the UK.
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Wesfarmers paid £340m for the retailer two years ago, but losses and other costs will bring its total bill to about £1bn.
The chain is being bought by restructuring specialist Hilco, which rescued music chain HMV in 2013.
The £1 price tag reflects the company's negligible value, but Homebase is far from being the first firm to be sold for £1 by an owner wanting to ditch a loss-making business.
Here are a few more:
BHS
In 2015, Sir Philip Green sold the BHS department store chain for £1 to an investment vehicle called Retail Acquisitions run by Dominic Chappell.
BHS, which collapsed the following year, was part of his Arcadia Group that includes TopShop, Burton and Evans.
The decision proved to be ill-fated for Sir Philip: last year the Pensions Regulator said he sold BHS to avoid responsibility for its insolvent pension schemes if the firm went bust.
City Link
Loss-making courier firm City Link was bought by investment firm Better Capital for £1 in April 2013.
But it collapsed on Christmas Eve 2014 and administrators from Ernst & Young said the £40m that Better Capital had put into City Link was not enough to turn it around.
The founder of Better Capital, Jon Moulton, later denied the firm's collapse had been mishandled.
Reader's Digest
Better Capital also spent tens of millions trying to revive the UK division of the magazine once routinely found in doctors and dentists' waiting rooms across the length and breadth of the country.
It paid £13m for the publisher in April 2010 but admitted defeat just under four years later and sold it for £1 to Mike Luckwell, a venture capitalist who was once the biggest shareholder in WPP.
Swansea City and Chelsea football clubs
After Swansea City FC was relegated to the third division in 2001, the Welsh football club's owners sold it for the princely sum of £1.
The owners, Ninth Floor, had paid £100 for the club four years earlier, but had also shelled out £500,000 to pay off debt.
In a similar vein, businessman Ken Bates paid a token £1 for Chelsea way back in 1982 - but also took on debts totalling some £1.5m.
It proved to be a rather shrewd investment: 21 years later Roman Abramovich bought the west London club for £140m. At the time it was the biggest takeover in British football history.
However, the club did not make a profit until 2012 - and even then it was a mere £1.4m.
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A crowdfunding campaign started by a mother for her son who needed an "off-road" wheelchair has hit its target.
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Rebecca Burnett said her son Tom, who has a muscle-wasting disease, needed the wheelchair to stay mobile.
The family's crowdfunding page successfully achieved the target of £12,500 to purchase a Terrain Hopper off-road wheelchair in three months.
Mrs Burnett, from Medstead in Hampshire, said they had received donations from across the country.
'Ended in tears'
Eight-year-old Tom was diagnosed at the age of four with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a severe muscle-wasting condition that causes muscles to weaken and waste over time, leading to increasing disability.
The family, who live in a rural area near Four Marks village, are surrounded by tracks and paths rather than pavements, they said.
Mrs Burnett said: "We had a trip to a farm and it was disastrous.
"I pretty much tipped him out [of his wheelchair] and he ended up in tears.
"Why should an eight-year-old no longer be able to do these activities?"
The family set up a crowdfunding page after initially receiving a charity grant for some of the cost, and received donations anonymously from across the country as well as from friends, family and others keen to help from around the local area.
Mrs Burnett said the support had been "overwhelming".
"It has given Tom his life back, it is life transforming," she said.
The wheelchair is due to arrive by the end of February.
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As London's Night Tube debuted after a delay of almost a year the mood in the carriages was predictably jovial, with many trains playing host to early hours singalongs.
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By Tim StokesBBC News
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan claims that running the network around the clock at the weekend will revolutionise the capital's nightlife but with only the Central and Victoria lines running initially, how much of a difference will it actually make?
BBC News spent the early hours riding the trains to find out.
As the clocks passed 00:30 BST there was none of the usual rush for the last Tube.
Instead the crowds were made up of reporters and camera crews, keen to see how London's Victorian Underground network would hold up during a 24-hour service.
At King's Cross staff asked passengers to add to a Night Tube playlist and the musical theme continued on to the trains.
One carriage heading west on the Central line was filled with girls singing a rendition of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline".
On another train, a group had changed the lyrics of "Night Fever" to "Night Tuber".
"It's weird being on a Tube at this time", one traveller called Floyd said.
He was making his way home to Hertfordshire and was pleased to now have a night time train service.
"But we need to have better links to commuter towns, not just in central London", he said.
Another traveller from Milan said it was "really cool to have the Night Tube".
Away from the centre the stations were less busy.
Places like Stratford were dotted with the occasional police officer but it did not feel like the crowds of 100,000 people who were expected to be using the service had turned out.
Carriages were relatively sedate, with a lot of people just trying to stay awake along their journey.
Tara Chahal, who had travelled to Brixton, said she was "really impressed with the service".
"There's been no arguments and no fighting. There's a regular service and it feels much safer than the night bus", she said
Her colleague Carla Tax, who is from the Netherlands and staying in London for the weekend, said she was surprised this was only the first time the Night Tube was running.
"Why is this new?" she said. "You would not expect anything else".
Another traveller named Rory said: "It's long overdue in my opinion. It makes life a lot easier."
By 02:45 the stations and trains were becoming quieter.
Highbury and Islington station was sparse except for two girls sitting on a bench whose voices echoed along the platform.
One Tube worker said it had been "really quiet".
"I was expecting it to be busier", he said.
Whether that remains the case as Londoners get used to having a 24-hour weekend Tube service and it is expanded to other lines remains to be seen.
BBC photographs by Kate Reading
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A senior SNP MP has criticised his party's support for a so-called People's Vote on Brexit.
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Nicola Sturgeon has said her MPs would "undoubtedly" back a public vote on the final Brexit deal if it was an option.
But Pete Wishart warned that the move could create "all sorts of risks to a future independence referendum for nothing".
Mr Wishart is the SNP's longest-serving MP, and the chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster.
People's Vote campaigners have been pressing for a fresh referendum on whatever exit plans result from talks with EU leaders, with Ms Sturgeon confirming earlier this month that her party would back the move.
But Prime Minister Theresa May has already rejected the calls - and while Labour has not ruled it out, it wants a general election to decide the issue.
What did Mr Wishart say?
Writing in the National newspaper, Mr Wishart argued that backing a second referendum on Brexit would make it more difficult for the SNP to resist calls for a similar confirmatory ballot if Scotland was to vote for independence.
This would encourage "unreconciled unionists" to work "non-stop from the day after the referendum to ensure that a successful outcome would be overturned", he predicted.
The Perth and Perthshire North MP added: "Every apparatus of state would be deployed and they would ensure that the worst possible 'deal' would be offered to the Scottish people in the hope that their union could be rescued."
Scotland voted by 63% to 37% to remain the EU, while the UK as a whole voted by 52% to 48% to leave.
In Mr Wishart's article, he said he was "particularly anxious" about supporting a second Brexit vote "without any guarantees that our choice in Scotland will be respected next time round".
He wrote: "To say that we will sign up to a referendum without any guarantee that our Scottish national voice will be at least acknowledged is little more than an open invitation to have our national view ignored and disrespected all over again.
"We are simply inviting all the indignities we are currently enduring to be replicated and refreshed".
Mr Wishart stressed that he still hoped Brexit can somehow be stopped.
But he said that, with less than six months until the UK is due to leave the EU, this now seemed unlikely - and there is "just not the political capacity to win a second vote."
He concluded: "The few Tories likely to vote in favour will be swamped by the number of Labour MPs who believe that the "result must be respected" even if the Labour front bench could be tempted to support it.
"We could be presenting all sorts of risks to a future independence referendum for nothing".
Where does Nicola Sturgeon stand on a 'People's Vote'?
Ms Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, told the BBC ahead of her party's recent autumn conference that her MPs would back a new Brexit referendum if it was an option.
She claimed the UK was heading for a "cobbled together" exit agreement that would be "almost as unacceptable as no deal at all".
And she predicted: "No doubt calls for a second referendum would grow in those circumstances, and I've said before we wouldn't stand in the way of a second referendum. I think SNP MPs would undoubtedly vote for that proposition."
Ms Sturgeon has also indicated she would seek a guarantee or "double lock" for such a ballot, for example requiring the support of all four UK nations before Britain could leave the EU.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford has also suggested that the SNP could seek a guarantee that Scotland could hold another vote on independence in return for its support.
However it is unclear if the SNP would withdraw its support if its demands for special conditions are not met.
What has the reaction to Mr Wishart been?
Responding to Mr Wishart's article, an SNP spokesman said: "We have made it clear that we would push strongly for any second EU referendum to have safeguards to ensure Scotland's voice is protected in the event of Scotland voting remain again while the UK as a whole voted to leave."
Scottish Labour MP and People's Vote supporter Ian Murray said Mr Wishart's comments were proof that the "SNP's heart has never been in it".
He added: "Everything is seen through the prism of independence for the nationalists, putting party interest ahead of the country's interest.
"We are inching towards a parliamentary majority for a People's Vote, so this raises questions about how Pete Wishart and other SNP MPs will vote in the Commons."
And Lib Dem MSP Tavish Scott said SNP MPs should be backing the People's Vote campaign rather than "throwing up more roadblocks."
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A secondary school forced to shut after a coronavirus outbreak has written to parents to explain its reopening schedule.
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Wilsthorpe School, in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, did not reopen last week after more than 100 staff and students tested positive.
The surrounding borough of Erewash now has the highest seven-day infection rate in England.
In a letter to parents the school said there would be a "staggered reopening".
In the seven days up to 6 May, the rate of infection in Erewash per 100,000 people was 185.5, up from just 17.3 in the week up to 29 April.
Head teacher Derek Hobbs told families pupils in Years 10 to 13 will be able to return on Tuesday, with Years 7 and 8 allowed back on Thursday and all year groups from Friday.
"I realise that this staggered reopening of school presents significant challenges for families, but we have taken this approach on clear advice from public health professionals," he said.
Mr Hobbs said further "mitigation measures" will be in place in the school as "there has been no clear evidence of the source" of the outbreak.
The new rules include increased supervision of hand-washing, more outdoor catering and seating, "reinforcing established year group bubbles and the social distancing measures" and postponing extracurricular clubs and activities.
Pupils who have returned negative results on lateral flow tests are asked to complete another before returning to school, while students not in school will be able to access their work through Google Classroom.
"The vast majority of our students have been vigilant in both wearing a face covering and using and reporting the results of lateral flow tests consistently," Mr Hobbs said in his letter.
"We would urge families to continue to support us in these two areas."
Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
Related Internet Links
Wilsthorpe School
Derbyshire County Council
Public Health England
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The new interim chief executive of Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS) says solving outstanding industrial relations is a "top priority".
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Martin Flaherty said he would be working closely with union officials.
"No-one wants to see standards of patient care affected by industrial action," he said.
Unison members in Bristol, Wiltshire, parts of Somerset and Gloucestershire are in dispute with GWAS management over pay and conditions.
GWAS said the changes were about saving more lives and having staff and vehicles available when they were needed by patients.
Unison claimed some workers could face pay cuts, while non-peak cover could be "slimmed down" as part of management plans.
Mr Flaherty joined GWAS on 7 February as a temporary replacement for David Whiting until a permanent chief executive is recruited.
This process is expected to take six to nine months.
Mr Flaherty said he had a a "long history" of working with trade unions to solve problems and move things forward in a way beneficial to both patients and staff.
Former boss David Whiting left GWAS at the end of January to become chief executive of Yorkshire Ambulance Service.
No-one from Unison could be contacted for comment about the appointment.
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Donald Trump says he has finished answering questions about alleged Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential campaign.
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The US leader told reporters he had personally answered the questions "very easily", but his responses had yet to be submitted to the investigating team.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has been looking into allegations of collusion between Mr Trump's campaign and Russia.
Mr Trump strongly denies any collusion, calling the probe "a witch hunt".
On Thursday, he took to Twitter to describe Mr Mueller as "conflicted", called the investigation "absolutely nuts", adding that those involved in the long-running probe "are a disgrace to our nation".
The tweets came a week after he forced the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, replacing him with Matthew Whitaker, who now has the power to sack Mr Mueller or end the investigation.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, he said the investigation had wasted "millions and millions of dollars" and "should never have taken place".
Mr Trump also suggested the people who wrote the questions he agreed to answer "probably have bad intentions".
"I'm sure they're tricked-up because, you know, they like to catch people," Mr Trump said, after making it clear he had written the answers to the questions.
"My lawyers don't write answers. I write answers," he said. "I was asked a series of questions. I've answered them very easily."
Exactly what the questions covered is not known. However, Mr Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani told the Washington Post on Thursday he had not answered questions relating to the period after his election, saying some were "possible traps", while others were "unnecessary" or "irrelevant".
What is behind the Russia investigation?
In 2016, US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had used a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media in an attempt to turn the election against Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.
A team of investigators led by Mr Mueller is looking into whether anyone from Mr Trump's campaign colluded in the effort.
It has been established that senior members of Mr Trump's team met Russian officials, and that several of these meetings were not initially disclosed.
The president's son, Donald Trump Jr, met a Russian lawyer during the campaign who was said to have "dirt" on Mrs Clinton, and former adviser George Papadopoulos has admitted lying to the FBI about meetings with alleged go-betweens for Russia.
Four people connected with Mr Trump's campaign and presidency - campaign chairman Paul Manafort, advisers Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, as well as former national security adviser Michael Flynn - have been charged and further indictments could be issued.
However the US president denies any wrongdoing and no solid evidence has emerged to implicate him.
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A woman accused of killing her next-door neighbour with a spade sent a police officer a WhatsApp message saying she would "smash her head in", a court has heard.
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Debby Foxwell, 40, is accused of murdering Louise Lotz, 64, in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, in August.
A jury has heard Ms Foxwell was in a long, bitter dispute with Ms Lotz.
Ms Foxwell denies murder, but has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
St Albans Crown Court previously heard former councillor Ms Lotz was "a bit of a hoarder" and Ms Foxwell believed the state of her neighbour's home on Fordwich Road was the reason she could not sell her own.
Jurors were told there had been bad feeling between the women for years and after a row in their back gardens on the evening of 24 August, Ms Foxwell grabbed a spade from her shed and later attacked Ms Lotz.
Ms Lotz suffered a fractured skull and died from a "severe traumatic head injury".
A statement was read to the court from PC Tim Hobman, who had been best friends with Ms Foxwell's husband Paul who died from cancer in 2016, and knew both women.
He said on the night of the killing Ms Foxwell sent him a WhatsApp message in which she said Ms Lotz had called the police in a dispute over their boundaries.
PC Hobman received another message from her, which he opened at about 22:30 BST, which read: "When will it stop? When I have smashed her head in - that's when."
He said even if he had read it earlier it would not have occurred to him that it was a genuine threat.
"Debby could fly off the handle at the slightest thing," PC Hobman said.
"I told Paul he should consider leaving her. Paul clearly loved her and she was not like that all the time. I promised Paul I would look out for her."
The officer described Ms Lotz as a "typical nosey neighbour" who was "not hostile".
The trial continues.
Related Internet Links
HM Courts Service
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Britons should make a "heroic new year's resolution" to contact someone they have drifted apart from, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
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Justin Welby called for the UK to "start healing some of the divisions that we've seen over recent years", in his new year message.
"It could be someone you've always wanted to connect with... [or] someone you really disagree with," he said.
"Pick one person. Pick up the phone. Send them a text."
The archbishop's message focused on heroism and hope - themes inspired by a recent visit to Dover lifeboat station.
It was broadcast on BBC One earlier and will be repeated on BBC Two at 16:30 GMT, as well as being available to watch on iPlayer.
Mr Welby met RNLI volunteers and was shown around a rescue boat as part of the programme.
"We rightly think of lifeboat crews as heroic, although they may be embarrassed to hear that. Yet every time we reach out and connect with someone, it is an act of heroism. Don't underestimate it," he said.
"Let's go for a heroic new year's resolution. Let's resolve to reconnect," Mr Welby added.
"To reach out to just one person we don't know, or from whom we have drifted apart... Meet them for a cup of tea. Make that connection. Let's begin cementing our unity one brick at a time."
'Decade of reconnection'
The archbishop's message is echoed in an open letter by leaders of prominent British organisations - including figures on both sides of the Brexit debate.
They say the 2020s should be a "decade of reconnection" and that people should resolve to "to start rebuilding connections between neighbours and fellow citizens".
They write that the UK "feels more fragmented than any of us would like", but add: "While our politics and media have become more polarised we, as people, have not. There is much that we share with each other."
The former heads of the Leave and Remain referendum campaigns, Matthew Elliott and Will Straw, are among the signatories, alongside Glastonbury Festival organiser Emily Eavis, Girlguiding chief Angela Salt, and CBI director Dame Carolyn Fairbairn.
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US troops in Afghanistan have been placed on alert following the killings of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier.
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US officials warned of reprisals after the soldier went on a rampage in villages near a base in Kandahar. Nine children were among those killed.
President Barack Obama phoned his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai to express condolences. But Mr Karzai has said the massacre is "unforgivable".
And Taliban militants have vowed to avenge the deaths.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said a full investigation is under way.
The soldier, believed to be a staff sergeant, is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 Sunday (22:30 GMT Saturday).
In the villages of Alkozai and Najeeban, about 500m (1,640ft) from the base, he reportedly broke into three homes.
At one house in Najeeban, 11 people were found shot dead, and some of their bodies set alight. At least three of the child victims are reported to have been killed by a single shot to the head.
The US military said reports indicated that the soldier returned to his base after the shootings and turned himself in. His motives are unclear - there is speculation that he might have been drunk or suffered a mental breakdown. But officers are worried that the attack might have been planned.
The soldier is being detained in Kandahar and the military is treating at least five people wounded in the attacks, officials said.
The detained soldier has not been identified, although US officials quoted by the Associated Press news agency said he was from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, 38 years old, married with two children, and had served three tours in Iraq and was on his first deployment in Afghanistan.
The killings come amid already high anti-US sentiment in Afghanistan following the burning of Korans at a Nato base in Kabul last month.
US officials have repeatedly apologised for the incident but they failed to quell a series of protests and attacks that killed at least 30 people and six US troops.
Fragile friendship
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the latest incident has damaged already fragile relations between Kabul and Washington.
He says the Taliban is using the shooting as a propaganda victory, placing President Karzai in a difficult position.
Angry tribal elders are now demanding an immediate end to US night raids on Afghan homes.
Afghan MPs passed a strong resolution to condemn the killing and demanded an open trial on Afghan soil. However, Afghanistan has signed an agreement with Nato that foreign soldiers should be tried in their own countries.
The killings could further fuel calls for a more rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, US personnel in Afghanistan were warned of possible reprisal attacks.
"The US Embassy in Kabul alerts US citizens in Afghanistan that as a result of a tragic shooting incident in Kandahar province involving a US service member, there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days, especially in the eastern and southern provinces,"the embassy said in an emergency statement on its website.
The US embassy in Kabul is restricting the movements of staff in southern Afghanistan until at least 17:00 local time on Monday.
In a statementreleased by the White House on Sunday, President Obama said: "This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan."
Our correspondent says Afghan officials also fear there will be violent demonstrations and have deployed extra police and troops around Kandahar.
President Karzai described the killings as the "intentional killing of innocent civilians" and said they could "not be forgiven".
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says this is the first time Afghan civilians have been targeted by foreign soldiers in this way.
However, one US soldier was convicted last year on three counts of premeditated murder after leading a rogue "kill team" in Afghanistan.
A recent poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found 60% of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs. Nearly the same number advocated an early US pullout from the country.
On a previously unannounced trip to Afghanistan, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said she could not be sure German troops would withdraw by 2014 as originally planned, but they were working towards that target.
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Music streaming company Spotify is reportedly in talks to take over $700m (£535m) rival Soundcloud.
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The two sides are in advanced negotiations, according to the Financial Times.
The talks come at a time when competition in the streaming music sector is intensifying.
Sweden's Spotify remains the market leader but faces increasing competition from Apple Music and Amazon's recently launched music service.
German-based SoundCloud built its business by allowing artists to upload their music and share it with fans on social media and blogs.
It has established the company as an influential player in the music industry, especially in the dance music genre.
In March, the company launched a pay-for streaming service similar to the offering from Spotify or Apple Music.
No profit so far
The firm has failed so far to make a profit, but has Twitter as its most high profile investor.
Mark Mulligan, an analyst at consultancy Midia, has been blogging on the takeover claims.
"Soundcloud has been shopping itself around for some time, while Spotify needs to continue outpacing Apple as it heads towards an initial public offering."
But a deal would be "far from a guaranteed winner for Spotify" as Soundcloud's growth may have "peaked" in 2014, he says.
Spotify, meanwhile, has seen its revenues reach €1.95bn ($2.2bn; £1.5bn) over the past year, but still has failed to make a profit.
The platform offers music over the internet for nothing, with advertisements or ad-free for a fixed monthly rate.
Apple launched its own music streaming service in 2015, while there are many smaller companies such as Rhapsody, Tidal or Deezer offering a similar service.
Spotify currently has 40 million paying subscribers, while next big player Apple Music has 17 million.
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Bulgaria's Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski has apologised for a political appointment that plunged his three-week-old government into crisis.
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His appointment of controversial media mogul Delyan Peevski as head of the national security agency provoked days of street protests, and prompted the main opposition to boycott parliament.
Parliament reversed the appointment on Wednesday.
There had been outrage that Mr Peevski was given access to top secret files.
The 32-year-old is understood to be behind a newspaper and TV empire, and was nominated by the ethnic Turkish junior party in the governing coalition.
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Sofia and other cities, for five days, to oppose his appointment.
Paralysis
Prime Minister Oresharski told parliament on Wednesday: "I made a political mistake, for which I apologise not only to you, but to the thousands of people who took to the streets to protest."
"They called for my resignation and I heard that clearly," he continued.
But he refused to step down, saying it would lead to a "bigger political crisis".
Bulgaria has already suffered a period of political paralysis.
Its centre-right Prime Minister Boiko Borisov resigned in February after big street protests about high electricity prices, austerity measures and mismanagement.
Elections were not held for three months, after which Mr Borisov emerged with a narrow lead.
However opposition parties refused to share power with him and eventually patched together their own coalition.
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Liverpool fans have paid tribute to the team's former manager Gerard Houllier remembering the Frenchman as "a gentleman" who "returned pride" to the club.
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Houllier, who led Liverpool to five major trophies, died earlier on Monday, aged 73.
He "brought the good times back", said Reds supporter John Gibbons.
One fans' group is already looking to arrange a memorial tribute to Houllier at Anfield.
Andy Knott, who twice previously arranged crowd mosaics in Houllier's honour, said he "most definitely" would look to remember him in a special way once supporters are allowed to return in numbers.
Liverpool fans first showed their appreciation for their then manager in November 2001, spelling out his initials 'GH' after he underwent open heart surgery at Broadgreen Hospital, having been taken ill a month earlier.
On the Frenchman's return to management duties in March 2002, supporters once again united to spell out the words "Allez, allez" to mark his recovery.
Mr Knott, who is a contributor to Liverpool fanzine, Red All Over The Land, met Houllier at the club's Melwood training base soon after, and remembers him as "a likeable gentleman".
"He was busy, but came down and had a good chat with us and said how he was so grateful," he said.
'Leave behind smiles'
Houllier is a figure that will forever remain "very much loved" in Liverpool for the FA Cup, League Cup and Uefa Cup treble-winning season of 2000-2001.
Lifelong Reds fan Damian Kavanagh was there for all three finals.
"What a time of our lives that was," he said.
"That is how he should be remembered. no-one is perfect, he didn't get every single decision right, but he really did bring Liverpool up to date when we needed it because we were struggling before he took charge.
Kavanagh said Houllier's history in the city, having worked as a teacher in the Liverpool in the 1960s when he also watched the team as a fan at Anfield, ensured a "strong connection".
"The fact he had been on the Kop and lived amongst us all here showed that he understood how much the team means to us," Kavanagh continued.
"In our short lives all you can ever leave behind is smiles and Houllier can certainly rest peacefully that there are a hell of a lot of people that support Liverpool that he made smile."
'Forever grateful'
For John Gibbons, a podcaster for the Anfield Wrap, Houllier is manager that delivered glory to a new generation.
"We loved it (treble season) because for us winning trophies is what Liverpool did on video, on VHS tapes," he said. "We were wondering when it would be our turn and when Houllier came, it was our turn.
"He gave us a lot of our pride back and brought good times back to the club. We will always be grateful for that."
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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has spoken of his regret at not being close to his late father, who he described as a "difficult" and "complicated" man.
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He told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, that he was "determined that my relationship with my own children will be different".
In the interview, Sir Keir also talked about how his political beliefs had shifted, and his aim to unite Labour.
And he spoke about his love of football, saying he plays every week.
Among the songs that Sir Keir chose were the England football anthem Three Lions by The Lightning Seeds, and Jim Reeves' Welcome To My World, which was his mother's favourite song.
He also picked a Northern Soul record - Dobie Gray's Out On The Floor - saying it reminded him of his "early days in London with a group of friends in a really grotty flat above a sauna and massage parlour that kept interesting hours".
Asked by presenter Lauren Laverne about his parents and upbringing in Oxted, Surrey, Sir Keir, 58, said: "I don't often talk about my dad."
"He was a difficult man, a complicated man, he kept himself to himself, he didn't particularly like to socialise, so wouldn't really go out very much. But he was incredibly hard-working."
Sir Keir said his father worked as a toolmaker in a factory and would work 14-hour days, coming home for an hour at 17:00 "for his tea" before returning to work again in the evening.
"But he had this utter devotion and commitment to my mum," said Sir Keir. "My mum was very, very ill all of her life and my dad knew exactly the symptoms of everything that might possibly go wrong with my mum, he knew exactly what drugs or combination of drugs or injection would be needed.
"He stopped drinking completely just in case he ever needed to get to the hospital with her. On the many occasions she was in hospital he would stay with her the whole time, he wouldn't leave the hospital, he would sleep on any chair or whatever was available."
But Sir Keir adds: "I wouldn't say we were close. I understood who he was and what he was but we weren't close and I regret that."
Sir Keir grew emotional when speaking about his mother - who had lived with the autoimmune condition Still's Disease since she was 11 - as he recalled when his father had phoned from the hospital to say: "I don't think your mum's going to make it."
He said his mother died just a few weeks before he was elected into Parliament as an MP in 2015, and his father died a couple of years ago.
'Started off as the radical'
Sir Keir's parents were "Labour through and through" but he said they did not have discussions about politics around the kitchen table.
Sir Keir said his politics had changed over the years but he still considered himself to be a socialist, adding: "Like most people, I started off as the radical who knew everything. I'm now much more open to ideas."
The former human rights lawyer and Director of Public Prosecutions also spoke about his aim for a "united Labour Party" and also addressed the recent decision to suspend former leader Jeremy Corbyn from the party.
"I didn't want that day to end in the way it did," he said, of the day the report into anti-Semitism in Labour was published. "I had no intention of purging anyone. I have no intention of purging anyone. I want the Labour Party to be a broad church."
He added being named Keir - after Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party - earned him "plenty of nicknames at school".
"I have to say at school, I was saying 'why on earth did you have to call me Keir? Why couldn't you have called me Pete or Dave or something like everybody else'," he said.
Desert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 at 11:00 GMT on Sunday, or listen later.
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British actor and activist Emma Watson has joined the board of French fashion giant Kering, owner of the Gucci label.
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The Harry Potter star, a well-known supporter of eco-friendly fashion, will chair Kering's sustainability committee after shareholders backed the move.
The firm's record on sustainability has been praised, but also criticised.
Former Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam and the head of Chinese ride hailing giant Didi Chuxing, Jean Liu, were also made board members.
Ms Watson, who rose to fame playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, is known for wearing sustainable clothes from top-tier designers for red carpet events and other public appearances.
Along with other campaign work, she is the face of the Good On You app, which rates fashion brands on their ethical and sustainability credentials.
The app has been less than complimentary about top Kering brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, rating them only "Not good enough" or "It's a start".
Due to its long supply chains and energy intensive production, the fashion industry consumes more energy than the aviation and shipping industry combined, according to the UN. It also responsible for producing large amounts of waste and polluting waterways.
But luxury firms, like many more mainstream brands, have been trying to bolster their sustainability credentials as they attempt to win over younger shoppers.
British designer Stella McCartney - who ended a partnership with Kering last year - is currently advising the board of LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton among other luxury brands, on environmental issues.
Kering points out it has won plaudits for its sustainability record. Among other things, it is reducing its environmental impact by cutting back on the number of collections it produces and using renewable energy across 67% of its global operations.
Diverse board
The firm's board appointments also come as companies face pressure to improve the diversity of their leadership.
Ms Liu, who is based in Beijing, has helped to build Didi into a multi-billion dollar transport business with 550 million users worldwide, and was ranked among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2017.
Mr Thiam, who was born in Ivory Coast, has led both Credit Suisse and insurer Prudential. He left Credit Suisse in February after it emerged that two former employees had been put under surveillance, although Mr Thiam denied knowledge of the operations.
Kering boss François-Henri Pinault praised the new board members' "knowledge and competences, and the multiplicity of their backgrounds and perspectives".
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A recall petition for a Conservative MP convicted for a false expenses claim will open on 9 May.
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Chris Davies tried to split the cost of photographs between two office budgets by faking invoices, when he could have claimed the amount by other means.
Voters in Brecon and Radnorshire will have six weeks to sign the petition in six locations across the constituency.
If 5,303 eligible voters sign it, 10% of the electorate, a by-election will be held.
House of Commons speaker John Bercow confirmed the recall petition on Wednesday, after Mr Davies was given a community order of 50 hours unpaid work and a £1,500 fine, at Southwark Crown Court, the previous day.
People registered for postal votes will receive a signing sheet to return if they want to sign the petition.
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Twitter has apologised for "unintentionally" using email addresses and phone numbers, provided by users for account security, to enable targeted advertising.
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Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter
The company said third-party marketers may have been able to reach specific users on Twitter based on contact details, even if the user had not wished the information be used this way.
In a statement, Twitter said it "cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted", but the BBC understands it affects users globally.
Unusually, the company is not proactively contacting customers directly to inform them of the breach.
The company would not say when it discovered the issue, but said it had addressed the problem “as of September 17” - 21 days ago.
The firm said it was "no longer using phone numbers or email addresses collected for safety or security purposes for advertising”.
Twitter, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, would not confirm whether or not it had notified the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, other than to say it was communicating with regulators “where appropriate”.
Under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), users must be informed if data is used for a purpose other than what it was intended for.
Twitter says it has 139 million users that use the platform every day and are served with adverts.
Tailored advertising
The issue involves a system Twitter offers advertisers whereby they can match their own database of customer email addresses - gathered independently from Twitter - with users on Twitter that use the same email address.
The practice - common across social networks - allows for highly targeted advertising designed to reach users who are likely already familiar with the brand or product.
However, what Twitter revealed in its statement on Tuesday was that this email matching was referencing addresses that users had submitted solely for the purpose of enhancing their account security by adding two-factor authentication.
This is a method that adds a second level of security - such as getting a text message with a log-in code - to prevent malicious actors from being able to use a person’s credentials.
"When an advertiser uploaded their marketing list, we may have matched people on Twitter to their list based on the email or phone number the Twitter account holder provided for safety and security purposes,” the company explained.
"This was an error and we apologise.”
In March, Facebook was highly criticised for using numbers and email addresses submitted for two-factor authentication to target advertising. Unlike Twitter, however, Facebook did not consider the behaviour to be mistake.
But, in handing down its record-breaking $5bn fine, the US Federal Trade Commission said Facebook must stop using "the phone numbers it obtained specifically for security” to power its advertising platform.
_____
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Healthcare in rural India is often basic, meaning people die unnecessarily.
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By Jane WakefieldTechnology reporter
Take anaemia for instance, more than half the cases can easily be cured with a course of free iron pills, but if left untreated it is potentially fatal, especially for pregnant women.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Myshkin Ingawale first heard about the problem from friends who worked as young doctors in remote areas of India.
"One in five deaths among pregnant women was traced back to this. I was not aware of this problem but my friends were seeing it on an ongoing basis in the field," he told the BBC.
Mr Ingawale decided to put his technology background to the test and come up with a solution that would be easy for healthcare workers - often untrained - to use in the field.
Lunch box
"I knew a little about technology and how to put things in a box," he said.
He took his inspiration from an unlikely source - Hollywood.
"I had seen this machine in Hollywood movies - when someone was lying in a hospital bed they were hooked up to it," he told the BBC.
The device he is talking about is a pulse oximeter, a non-invasive method of monitoring the oxygenation of haemoglobin using light. The patient is attached to the machine via a finger clip.
A similarly non-invasive device was perfect for his needs because healthcare workers in India are often not trained to conduct blood tests using needles and lack the equipment to assess the results of such tests.
"I found that there was no commercial availability of a device to measure haemoglobin in the same way," said Mr Ingawale.
So he set about designing one.
"When we first saw it is was just circuitry housed in a lunch box," said Noah Perin, commercialisation officer at the Program for the Appropriate Technology in Health (Path).
Path follows the development of new medical technologies and has been looking for devices that can help detect anaemia for the past 20 years.
No needle
The finished product was a little more sophisticated, a hand-held, battery-operated device that can measure haemoglobin levels without the prick of a needle.
Known as TouchHb, it comes with a probe into which the finger is inserted. When light-emitting diodes in the probe shine light through the nail, a photodiode on the other end interprets the absorption patterns to produce an instant reading of the volume of haemoglobin in the patient's blood.
It can diagnose anaemia in less than a minute and is currently being piloted in clinics in South India as part of the vital data collection exercise that could see the device go commercial later this year.
The batteries can be recharged and are expected to last for more than 100 tests. The probe will also require yearly maintenance.
Mr Ingawale's firm, Biosense Technologies, aims to sell the machines for between $200 and $300 (£125-£188) and the cost of individual tests will be just 5 rupees (10 cents; 6p).
The costs are outweighed by the benefits, he thinks.
"Pregnant women are recommended to get a haemoglobin test at least once in every trimester of their pregnancy but it is inconvenient for a women to walk to the nearest primary healthcare centre that could more than 5km away," he said.
"They do not feel sick enough to justify that trip that could even come against losing a day's wages, so a large number of women skip the screening and monitoring."
With this simple test, available in their own community, there is much greater likelihood of spotting and subsequently treating anaemia, he suggested.
Local need
"We are quite excited about it because it is targeted at and developed for front-line health workers," said Mr Perin.
"This device won't cure anaemia but it can have a dramatic impact in alerting people to the fact that they have a problem," he added.
Mr Ingawale wants to see more devices developed at grassroots level, based on the needs of patients in the field.
"There needs to be a rethink in the way healthcare is delivered to people. It needs to be far more decentralised. It can become a consumerist movement in the same way that Wikipedia has been for information," he said.
Mr Perin agrees.
"We have seen devices like this before but they have been huge sophisticated machines made for the developed world and adapted. There is a real advantage in inventing devices based on local needs," he said.
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Samsung has suffered a setback in its effort to win an iPhone ban based on a function making its software accessible to blind people.
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By Leo KelionTechnology reporter
The South Korean firm had sought an injunction in a German court arguing Apple's VoiceOver screen-access facility infringed one of its patents.
However, the judge has ordered the case to be suspended pending another ruling that could invalidate Samsung's claim.
Disability campaigners had expressed concern about the case.
Apple's VoiceOver function is used by blind and partially-sighted people to hear a description of what the iPhone is showing by touching its screen.
The software covers text and icons including audio descriptions of the battery level and network signal. It also allows the phones to be operated via Braille-based add-ons.
Samsung had argued that Apple had failed to licence a patent it owned which describes pressing a button to make a handset describe its display. The basis for this was that VoiceOver could be switched on by triple-clicking the iPhone's home button.
Apple declined to comment.
A statement from Samsung said: "For decades, we have heavily invested in pioneering the development of technological innovations in the mobile industry, which have been constantly reflected in our products.
"We continue to believe that Apple has infringed our patented mobile technologies, and we will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights."
'Regrettable in the extreme'
Patent consultant Florian Muller, who was first to report the Mannheim Court's decision, questioned Samsung's tactics.
"If Samsung had only requested monetary compensation in this action, it would have made a much better choice than by trying to achieve, through the pursuit of an injunction, the deactivation or (more realistically) degradation of the voiceover functionality Apple provides to its German customers," he wrote on his blog.
The British Computer Association of the Blind said it was worried such an important feature might be threatened.
"A lack of access to information is arguably the biggest potential barrier to inclusion in society for blind and partially-sighted people," a spokesman told the BBC.
"If something as important as access to telephone technology had been blocked by the actions of one company over another the consequences for blind people everywhere would be regrettable in the extreme."
The Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD tech site was more damning.
"Leaving aside the ethics of asserting a patent against a feature designed to help the blind, this is unwise," wrote John Paczkowski.
"It's the PR equivalent of punching yourself in the face. Samsung has now identified itself as a company willing to accept the loss of accessibility for the vision-impaired as collateral damage in its battle with Apple."
Apple and Samsung have fought a number of patent cases against each other in courts across the world.
The biggest award involved a US jury ordering Samsung to pay Apple $1.05bn (£688m) in damages. The judge in the case later rejected Apple's call for the sum to be increased and a sales ban on some Samsung handsets.
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The slaughter of 28 people on a bus in Kenya is a bid to start a religious war, a senior adviser to President Uhuru Kenyatta has told the BBC.
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Abdikadir Mohammed called on Kenyans of "all faiths and creeds" to stand together against the "heinous crimes".
At dawn on Saturday, al-Shabab gunmen attacked the bus in northern Kenya, shooting dead non-Muslim passengers.
The Somalia-based Islamist group has carried out numerous attacks across Kenya since 2011.
The bus was travelling to the capital, Nairobi, when it was stopped in Mandera county, not far from the border with Somalia.
Gunmen separated out non-Muslims by asking passengers to read from the Koran, officials and witnesses said. Those who failed were then shot in the head.
Kenya's Red Cross confirmed that 28 of the 60 passengers on the bus were killed, 19 men and nine women.
One survivor, Douglas Ochwodho, told how he was singled out to be killed but was not shot and then pretended to be dead among the bodies.
'Heinous crimes'
"The aim is to create conflict between the Muslims and the non-Muslims in this country," Mr Mohammed told the BBC. "The aim is to create a religious war, religious strife, in Kenya."
"We have had a lot of the Muslim leaders come out today [Saturday] and strongly condemn this and call on Kenyans of all faiths and creeds to stand together against these heinous crimes and criminals."
Al-Shabab said the attack was in retaliation for recent killings of Muslims by the Kenyan security forces in the coastal town of Mombasa.
The Kenyan authorities said they had begun to identify the killers and would bring them to justice.
The interior ministry said a camp belonging to the attackers had been destroyed by Kenyan military helicopters and jets, with "many killed".
Analysis: Anne Soy, BBC News, Nairobi
Mandera shares a long and porous border with Somalia. The area - in fact the region - has been prone to insecurity since Kenya's independence in 1963.
It's a vast arid and semi-arid area that is sparsely populated and characterised by poor infrastructure and very few schools and hospitals. Communities in the north have felt marginalised by the national government for decades.
Guns are readily available due to its proximity to Somalia and the south of Ethiopia where the Oromo Liberation Front is active. Al-Shabab has a base on the Somali side of the border - Gadondhawe - which was recently bombarded by Kenyan warplanes.
It's a confluence of factors that makes it a fertile ground for recruitment by the militant group.
One of the passengers on the bus told the BBC that the bus driver tried to accelerate away from the militants but the vehicle became stuck in mud, about 30km (19 miles) from Mandera town.
He said about 10 heavily-armed men speaking Somali ordered the passengers off the bus.
"When we got down, passengers were separated according to Somali and non-Somalis," the passenger said.
Some Somalis were shot after pleading with the gunmen to spare non-Somali passengers, he said.
'Avoidable massacre'
A local official quoted by Kenyan media said the government had failed to answer their pleas for extra security in an area "prone to attacks".
"This is not the first time the government has totally ignored us, and you can now see the how many innocent precious lives have been lost," county official Abdullahi Abdirahman said.
"Today we are experiencing avoidable massacre," he added.
Britain and the United States condemned the attack, pledging to help Kenya in its fight against terrorism.
Last week, Kenyan police shut down four mosques in the port city of Mombasa, a largely Muslim city, saying they were being used to store weapons. The raids triggered apparent revenge attacks by Muslim youths.
Kenya has experienced a series of al-Shabab attacks since it sent troops to Somalia three years ago to help fight the militant group.
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Hundreds of cruise ship passengers are to be placed in coronavirus quarantine on an island home to one of Australia's cutest marsupials - the fluffy quokka.
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Some 800 Australians on board the Vasco de Gama will spend 14 days on Rottnest Island off the west coast.
They were due to arrive in Perth on Friday, but officials have effectively banned cruise ships from docking there.
This follows the Ruby Princess unloading 2,700 passengers in Sydney, more than 130 of whom have coronavirus.
The cheerful-looking quokka is a small marsupial native to a small corner of south-western Australia and considered endangered.
They are chiefly found on Rottnest Island where they have no predators, and regularly feature in selfies with sightseers - so much so there have been warnings too much attention could be a bad thing..
Rottnest is a holiday hotspot, also famous for its sandy beaches and clear blue water.
Australian nationals will be ferried in groups to the island from the Vasco de Gama, ABC reports.
But foreign passengers and crew would have to stay on board until they can be flown out directly, said Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan.
The state has also blocked two other cruise ships from docking.
The Magnifica and Artana have both reported unwell passengers on board. There are no Australians on board those vessels, ABC says.
All visitors have been ordered off the island to prepare it as a quarantine site.
The Ruby Princess is the biggest single source of infections in Australia and has caused much anger. One passenger died in hospital on Tuesday.
Australia has confirmed more than 2,400 coronavirus cases and and on Wednesday said a ninth person had died in the outbreak.
The 68-year-old man from Queensland had been on another cruise ship - Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas - which docked in Sydney on 18 March.
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The only problem with writing a debut novel that sells 20 million copies and spawns a Hollywood film is - your follow-up has a lot to live up to.
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Paula Hawkins' 2015 debut The Girl on the Train was a publishing phenomenon, and the first reviews for her new book Into The Water are in.
And most critics are not impressed.
Reviewing it for The Guardian, crime author Val McDermid predicted Hawkins' sales would be "massive" but "her readers' enjoyment may be less so".
McDermid was puzzled by the 11 narrative voices used in Into The Water, which is released in the UK next week.
She wrote: "These characters are so similar in tone and register - even when some are in first person and others in third - that they are almost impossible to tell apart, which ends up being both monotonous and confusing."
She added: "Hawkins had a mountain to climb after the success of The Girl on the Train and no doubt the sales of her second thriller will be massive. I suspect her readers' enjoyment may be less so."
Slate's Laura Miller declared that Into the Water "isn't an impressive book".
She wrote: "Its tone is uniformly lugubrious and maudlin, and Hawkins' characters seldom rise to the level of two dimensions, let alone three."
But Miller pointed out: "None of this will necessarily prevent Into the Water from triumphing at the cash register. The book surely will become a best-seller, if only on the strength of residual name recognition for The Girl on the Train."
Janet Maslin wasn't much more enthusiastic in The New York Times.
"If The Girl on the Train seemed overplotted and confusing to some readers, it is a model of clarity next to this latest effort.
"Her goal may be to build suspense, but all she achieves is confusion. Into the Water is jam-packed with minor characters and stories that go nowhere."
'Plausible and grimly gripping'
She asks: "What happened to the Paula Hawkins who structured The Girl on the Train so ingeniously?"
However, The New Statesman's Leo Robson defended the book, writing: "Most of the time, the novel is plausible and grimly gripping.
"Into the Water follows its predecessor in applying laser scrutiny to a small patch, but there are signs of growth and greater ambition."
He described Hawkins's writing as "addictive", adding that the novel "is on a par with The Girl on a Train".
The Evening Standard's David Sexton wrote: "Unfortunately, Into the Water turns out to be hard work."
"There's a ridiculous multiplication of narrators from the start, some first-person, others third, so that on first reading it is almost impossible to keep track of who's who and what relation they have to one another... several of the stories never really cohere."
'Overambitious'
Marcel Berlins in The Times said: "This novel has its intriguing attributes.
"It does not follow the usual samey fashionable pattern of 'domestic noir' and psychological thrillers. For that Hawkins ought to be commended, even if the result is not a full success.
"She is let down by her overambitious structure and a lack of sufficient tension. Hawkins does not quite pass the second-book test."
Of course, reviews of any kind are unlikely to deter the millions who enjoyed The Girl on the Train.
After all, critics didn't much like the film adaptation of her previous book, starring Emily Blunt, but that didn't stop it being a box office success.
The Girl on the Train was Hawkins' first book under her own name, but she had previously written a string of chick-lit novels under the pen name Amy Silver.
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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A man and woman have appeared in court charged with causing the death of two young brothers by dangerous driving, following a suspected hit-and-run crash in Coventry.
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Corey, six, and Casper Platt-May, two, were on a family trip to a park on Thursday when they were hit by a car.
Robert Brown, 53, and Gwendoline Harrison, 41, spoke only to confirm their names and addresses at Coventry Magistrates' Court.
They have been remanded in custody.
Mr Brown, of Attwood Crescent, Wyken, is also charged with driving while disqualified and without a licence or insurance.
Ms Harrison, of Triumph Close, Wyken, also faces an allegation of common assault.
They are due to appear at Warwick Crown Court on Thursday 22 March.
Corey and Casper were with their mother and a group of up to nine children being helped across Macdonald Road at about 14:00 GMT on Thursday when they were struck.
They were taken to hospital with severe injuries but Casper could not be revived and died a short time later.
Corey was rushed into surgery, but later died.
Family and friends have set up a number of fundraising pages to help the grieving parents cover the funeral costs.
Coventry City Football Club said their players would wear black armbands during Saturday's match against Mansfield Town in memory of the boys.
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Hair salons have said they have stopped stocking celebrity gossip magazines after the death of Caroline Flack.
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By Jennifer MeierhansBBC News Online
Some hairdressers posted the decision on social media after the former Love Island host was found dead.
Among them was salon owner Anita Donoghue whose Facebook post about binning "pages of fat shaming, slut shaming, celebs without make-up" was shared thousands of times.
A press regulator said it had received complaints over headlines about Caroline Flack following her death.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) said it was investigating a number of complaints in line with its normal procedure.
Ms Flack was found dead weeks before she was due to stand trial for assaulting her boyfriend - a prosecution he did not support.
She wrote in an unpublished Instagram post: "I am suddenly on a different kind of stage and everyone is watching it happen."
Ms Donoghue, salon director of Hair Cafe in Dublin, said hairdressers had been posting about their dislike of gossip magazines for years.
"I'm by no means the first to do this," she said. "But I think I was one of the first to react in this way to the sad news about Caroline," said the 41-year-old.
"I was unconsciously going out and buying these magazines because it was the norm to see them in salons, cafes, dentists' waiting rooms.
"When I thought about Caroline and the impact these magazines have had on her life I wanted to make a change."
Ms Donoghue's post has been liked and shared thousands of times and other hairdressers have composed similar messages.
"It's unbelievable how it's been picked up," she said. "It's the right thing to do. I want to cry I'm so proud," she said.
Josie Kent, salon owner of Caribou Hair Ltd in Par Cornwall, said the star's death made her rethink celebrity gossip culture.
"We came back into the salon after the news over the weekend and the first thing I did was go through our magazines," said the 28-year-old.
"Every one had horrible things across the front about what Caroline was going through. These were stories written about her private life prior to her passing.
"It seemed wrong to have them in the salon and when I thought about it that's exactly what drove her to do it."
Ms Kent said she swapped the magazines for health and fashion publications.
"Our clients absolutely loved having something refreshing to read instead of pointless rubbish always putting other people down," she said.
How are magazines regulated?
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) regulates newspapers and magazines under a set of rules called the Editors' Code of Practice.
All members of IPSO follow the same code whether they are a national newspaper, local paper or magazine.
Anyone can make a complaint to IPSO over a potential breach of the accuracy clause.
For most other clauses generally the person directly affected must complain.
If after investigation, IPSO's complaints committee finds that the code has been breached it can order a correction or a longer form ruling to be published.
IPSO publishes its list of members here and its rulings here.
Social media has also come under scrutiny in the search for explanations and blame since Ms Flack took her life - as have the mainstream media, and the Crown Prosecution Service for pressing ahead with a trial.
An inquest will be held in August to investigate the causes behind Ms Flack's death but the Samaritans maintain the reasons for any suicide are usually numerous and complex.
'Be kind'
Amelia Herbert at Watkins Wright in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, joined in after seeing other salons sharing similar statements.
"This weekend I felt really sad," she said. "I felt like I needed a break from social media so I deleted my apps on my phone.
"I didn't want to see magazines tearing celebrities down.
"If we can learn anything from this it's that you've got to be nice to other people," she said.
"It's so important in the hair and beauty industry to promote wellbeing.
"It's all well and good having your hair and make-up done but our ethos here is to make you feel good on the inside too."
Jennie Galligan, owner of Jennifer Ashley Hair in Reddish, Stockport, said she wanted to be part of a shift in culture.
"I've never been one for gossip magazines but within hairdressers they're just a given," said the 28-year-old.
"My salon ethos is all about empowering women so actually we don't want them," she said.
"Lots of our clients have said we would rather look at home and wedding magazines.
"Half of them don't even know who most of the reality TV stars in these magazines are."
Information and support
If you or someone you know needs support for issues about emotional distress, these organisations may be able to help.
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