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An extreme heatwave in Australia has led to the deaths of more than 90 wild horses in the outback, authorities say.
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Rangers found dead and dying animals in a dried-up waterhole near Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, last week.
About 40 of the animals had already died from dehydration and starvation. Surviving horses were later culled.
It comes amid record-breaking heat, with temperatures hitting 49.5C north of Adelaide in South Australia.
The mercury rose to 47.7C in the city itself on Thursday, breaking a record set in 1939.
How hot is it?
Australia has experienced a fortnight of extreme heat that has broken dozens of records across the nation.
More than 13 towns in the state of South Australia have seen heat records eclipsed.
Emergency services in more than 13 districts are on alert for fear of possible bushfires.
Meanwhile in Alice Springs, near where the horses were found, temperatures have exceeded 42C for almost two weeks - more than 6C above January's typical average, according to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.
WARNING: Readers may find some images in this article disturbing
How have animals been affected?
Rangers came across the horses after their absence was noted by a remote community, said local authority Central Land Council (CLC).
A local resident, Ralph Turner, also visited the site and posted photos online, describing the scene as "carnage".
"I was devastated. I'd never seen anything like it - all the bodies," he told the BBC.
"I couldn't believe something like that had happened."
Another local, Rohan Smyth, told the ABC that water was "normally there" and that the horses "just had nowhere to go".
The council said it had organised a cull of the remaining horses because they were found close to death.
They also planned to cull another 120 feral horses, donkeys and camels "dying from thirst" in a neighbouring community, said CLC director David Ross.
"With climate change well and truly upon us, we expect these emergencies to occur with increasing frequency and nobody is truly prepared and resourced to respond to them," Mr Ross wrote in a press release.
Several other wildlife species have also suffered, with reports of mass deaths of native bats in New South Wales.
Up to a million fish have also been found dead along river banks in the drought-affected state.
The government has launched a review into the fish deaths.
How have people been coping?
South Australia health authorities said 44 people had come in for treatment in the space of 24 hours due to the extreme temperatures.
Officials nationwide have issued health warnings urging people to stay indoors and minimise physical activity, with heightened concerns for the elderly, the chronically ill and children.
Earlier this month, officials confirmed that 2018 and 2017 had been Australia's third and fourth hottest years on record respectively.
The bureau's State of the Climate 2018 report said climate change had led to an increase in extreme heat events.
How is climate change affecting Australia?
Even if global temperatures are contained to the Paris accord limit of a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, scientists believe Australia is facing a dangerous new normal.
Parts of eastern Australia suffered their worst drought in recent history last year, while thousands of Australians fled their homes when bushfires swept through Queensland in November.
The country has committed to reducing its emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030, under the Paris climate agreement.
But in November, school students nationwide left class in protest at what they said was a response the government's inadequate action on climate change.
According to the UN's 2018 emissions gap report, Australia's climate policy saw no improvement in 2017, and emission levels for 2030 are projected to be above target.
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Hundreds of rowing crews will help swell the population of a Scottish coastal town by a third for their world championships next month.
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More than 50 clubs from around the globe are expected in Stranraer for the SkiffieWorlds from 7 to 13 July.
It is the world championship for the St Ayles Class of coastal rowing boat.
Teams will take to the waters of Loch Ryan in what has been described by organisers as "the largest event the town has hosted".
"Loch Ryan is a perfect stage for water sports," said Wendi Cuffe of Stranraer Coastal Rowing Club.
"It's a natural amphitheatre with calm, sheltered water, amazing onshore facilities, a stunning park and its close proximity to the town and its facilities makes it really pretty perfect for competitive water sports events and for water-based leisure activities.
"Hosting SkiffieWorlds 2019 is a team effort involving many individuals and community groups, all working together to help Stranraer shine."
Dumfries and Galloway Council's events champion Adam Wilson said the local authority was "thrilled" to support the "fantastic event".
"The hosting of the SkiffieWorlds Championship is a huge opportunity for Stranraer, not just to show off Loch Ryan to the world, but to build on the economic redevelopment we have seen over the last few years," he said.
"I am sure the event will be a great success and see visitors flock to Stranraer and wider Wigtownshire for this exciting event."
VisitScotland director of events Paul Bush said it was a "fantastic addition" to a "packed portfolio" of events this year.
The St Ayles skiff is an oared rowing boat inspired by the traditional Fair Isle skiff.
The standard crew is four rowers, each with a single oar, and a coxswain.
The world championships are held every three years with Stranraer winning the competitive bidding process to stage the event.
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Giving free school meals to all pupils in Wales would remove the stigma, a group of councillors has said.
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Anglesey's audit committee said it would also help local authorities who are having to pursue parents for debts.
However, the council's head of resources Marc Jones said a new cashless system should make it less obvious which children did not pay.
The Welsh Government said councils could offer free meals to all pupils if they made enough room in their budget.
A report by council officers said they could only offer "limited assurance" over Anglesey's school income collection arrangements.
They found some schools were still operating a manual paper system while others took payments using mobile phone apps, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Councillor Bob Llewellyn Jones, vice-chairman of the committee, said a revamp of the system could help.
"Over the years, this council has written to the assembly requesting free school meals for all Welsh pupils," he told the committee on Tuesday.
"I think, like free subscriptions, it would be beneficial for the children as the stigma can be there forever when other kids know who receives the free school meals."
At present, one in six Welsh pupils - just over 76,000 - is eligible for free school meals.
However, all state-funded schools in England have a legal duty to offer free meals to children in reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
In Scotland they are available to all pupils in primary years 1 to 3.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: "We want to use public money as effectively as possible, and ensure that those who are most in need are supported.
"Extending eligibility for free school meals to include all children - not just those from the lowest income families - would need greater financial investment.
"This would mean savings would then have to be made elsewhere."
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Egyptian media say prosecutors have referred eight museum employees for trial over the botched reattachment of the beard on the burial mask of the pharaoh, Tutankhamun.
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It comes a year after officials opened an investigation into how the blue and gold braided beard came to be detached and then hastily glued back on.
The accused face charges of negligence and violating professional standards.
The 3,000-year-old artefact is one of Cairo's biggest tourist attractions.
Conservators at the Egyptian Museum had given differing accounts of the circumstances of the beard becoming detached.
One suggestion was that it had been knocked off accidentally, another that it had been removed after becoming loose.
Prosecutors said workers then "recklessly" tried to cover up the mistake, using large amounts of inappropriate glue in an effort to fix it.
In all, they made four attempts to reattach the beard, on the later three occasions also trying to remove evidence of their earlier failed efforts.
One report, in the Daily News Egypt, quoted prosecutors as saying: "Ignoring all scientific methods of restoration, the suspects tried to conceal their crime by using sharp metal tools to remove parts of the glue that became visible, thus damaging the 3,000-year-old piece without a moment of conscience."
Those due to face trial include a former director of the museum and a former director of restoration.
Last October, a team of conservators led by German experts began work to remove the damage and reattach the beard professionally.
Following successful restoration, the mask was put back on public display in December.
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They're becoming a must-have for tourists but the selfie stick will not be welcome at Washington's top museums.
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The Smithsonian, the largest research and museum group in the world, has banned the fashionable photography aid.
"This is a preventive measure to protect visitors and objects, especially during crowded conditions," it said in a statement.
The selfie stick allows you a longer reach when using a smartphone or camera to take a picture of yourself.
It first gained popularity in Asia but has lately been condemned by some as annoying when brandished in public.
"We encourage museum visitors to take selfies and share their experiences and leave the selfie sticks in their bags," the Smithsonian said.
The new rule - not inspired by any one incident but designed to be preventative - is the first change in years to the Smithsonian's rules.
"I can't think of any recent change that's been similar to this," spokesman John Gibbons said.
"I don't think 10 years ago that you could have predicted there would even be such a thing, let alone that it would be so popular."
The Smithsonian consists of 19 museums and galleries in the US capital, the National Zoological Park and nine research centres. It had more than 28 million visits last year.
The institution, which already prohibits tripods, monopods and large backpacks in its buildings, is not alone in saying no to the new selfie accessory.
Similar restrictions on the tourist item have been enforced at museums and galleries in the US in recent months including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Modern Museum of Art (MOMA), the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Major galleries in Australia have introduced a ban also. And they have been banished from major European football games and music venues such as the O2 and Wembley Arena.
Most European art institutions, however, have not taken action - the Louvre in Paris and London's Tate Museums still permit them. They can also be seen at New York's Museum of Natural History.
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Is India winning the battle against poverty? Going by the latest figures, yes.
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Soutik BiswasDelhi correspondent
The number of Indians living in extreme poverty has fallen from 37% to 22% in the past seven years, according to the latest official data from the Planning Commission.
The good news is that poverty in large swathes of dirt-poor northern India - states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh, which have been considered a drag on India's development - has fallen sharply.
Today there are more people living in extreme poverty in the economically prosperous western state of Gujarat (16.63%) than in the traditional northern laggard Rajasthan (14.71%).
In eastern Orissa, which had the highest number of poor in 2004, poverty levels have nearly halved.
Economists like YK Alagh say the latest data are significant and show a "rapid decline" in poverty.
Dr Alagh says this is because of various factors:
But sceptics believe the new data are flawed since they are based on India's contentious definition of the term "- anyone earning fewer than 32 rupees (55 cents, 35 pence) in urban areas and 27 rupees (45 cents, 30 pence) in rural areas is counted as a person living below the poverty line.
The four-decade-old "official poverty line"', which has been updated over the years, is essentially based on the minimum calories consumed by a person.
But food consumption patterns have changed, people's aspirations have grown and therefore the definition of extreme poverty has altered.
The government expects to announce a new threshold next year, which according to economist C Rangarajan will "re-define poverty".
"We definitely need to come up with a new, updated poverty line based on current realities," agrees Dr Alagh.
The new data will help the beleaguered Congress Party-led government, which has come under vicious attack from its critics for slow growth, high inflation, a precarious current account deficit, blocked projects and a splurge on social welfare despite falling revenues (a law to provide cheap food to two thirds of the population is the latest scheme).
Despite the good tidings, India's war on poverty is far from over.
Remember, 270m Indians still live in extreme poverty. That is one in five Indians.
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Chris Rock fans will have their phones locked up during his forthcoming UK shows. Is this the start of no longer seeing a sea of screens at concerts?
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By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter
Gigs in the pre-smartphone age used to be far less complicated.
You'd turn up. Maybe locate the bar and figure out where the bathrooms were. Flick through a programme or chat to your friends, and then just enjoy the show.
But these days, such a scene sounds like ancient history.
Now, you turn up. Check yourself in on Facebook. Catch up on emails while you're waiting for the show to start, and then when it does, upload some photos and videos you've taken to Instagram.
But many concertgoers find the practice irritating, and now some performers are starting to object too.
"No mobile phones, cameras or recording devices will be allowed at Chris Rock's Total Blackout Tour," read a message posted on ticketing websites when the comedian's new UK dates went on sale this month.
"Upon arrival, all phones and smart watches will be secured in Yondr pouches that will be unlocked at the end of the show."
The term Yondr might make you Wondr what on earth they're talking about.
Yondr is a relatively new American company which gives you a pouch as you're going into a gig for you to place your phone in.
The pouch is then locked, and you keep it with you for the duration of the gig. At the end of the show, or if you need to use your phone during the performance, you can take the pouch outside of the phone-free zone to have it unlocked.
"We think smartphones have incredible utility, but not in every setting," Yondr say.
"In some situations, they have become a distraction and a crutch - cutting people off from each other and their immediate surroundings."
The company says it aims to "show people how powerful a moment can be when we aren't focused on documenting or broadcasting it".
Rock's use of Yondr at his upcoming UK dates marks the biggest use of the company's pouches in the UK to date.
"I think Chris Rock's audiences will probably be disgruntled but compliant," says Hattie Collins, features editor at ID.
"If you're talking about a Harry Styles gig on the other hand, you're going to have a whole world of problems - there's a much younger audience who are used to sharing everything they do."
Collins adds that the ubiquity of smartphones has arguably had a damaging effect on music fans who want to connect with an artist.
"It's created a passivity as a viewer, so you're much less engaged. You're focused on taking the picture, opening up social media, adding an emoji, and by that point you've missed half the song."
Asked about the Chris Rock shows, a spokesperson for the SSE Hydro in Glasgow told the BBC: "Although it isn't standard practice, the artist has requested Yondr be used throughout his tour so we were happy to facilitate."
But are the audience happy with the restrictions, and the potential delays at security?
Here's what a few ticket buyers told us:
Some of the fans said they were sympathetic to how problematic it can be for comedians (as opposed to musicians) to have their performances posted online.
If a comedian's jokes are leaked, it can spoil it for other audiences who were planning to see the same show later in the tour.
It's arguably less of an issue for musicians, as audiences are already familiar with the material they're performing and reaction will be broadly the same regardless of whether live footage from another show had already been posted online.
Collins says: "I'm very torn, because on one hand I feel like it's something of an infringement of your civil liberties, but I appreciate that sounds far-fetched because they're not taking their phone off you, you keep it on you all the time."
All eyes will be on Rock's shows in January to see how the crowds react in person.
His tour will be the biggest UK test yet for Yondr and audiences, who have been asked to turn up an hour early to allow for extra time to go through metal detectors.
But Rock isn't the first to use Yondr in the UK - Alicia Keys and Dave Chappelle both utilised it at their London dates last year.
Collins thinks the future of phone restrictions at gigs in the UK is hard to predict, as it largely depends on what kind of concert it is.
"I went to see Bob Dylan this month, and they asked that nobody take videos or photos, and there were two or three people wandering up and down the side of the auditorium to make sure nobody did," she explains.
"It was quite a refreshing experience, and so much more compelling to watch. Almost quite strange that it was just the stage and not the shadows of 400 mobile phones."
"But then when I saw TLC two nights later everyone messaged me saying 'ahh these pictures are great', they really enjoyed seeing the photos from a gig they didn't go to themselves."
She adds: "I think it's a shame because part of me agrees it would be nice to have fewer phones, but on the other hand it's really nice to be able to share."
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 transgender man, who has given birth to a child and does not want to be described as "mother" on a birth certificate, has lost a legal battle.
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Freddy McConnell wanted to be registered as "father" or "parent".
But a High Court judge ruled the status of "mother" was afforded to a person who carries and gives birth to a baby.
He said while Mr McConnell's gender was recognised by law as male, his parental status of "mother" derives from the biological role of giving birth.
Mr McConnell, a journalist at the Guardian, has told the BBC he plans to appeal against the ruling.
During the trial in London, the High Court heard how Mr McConnell was a single parent, who was born a woman but now lived as a man following surgery.
He was biologically able to get pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy last year, but had legally become a man by the time of the birth.
Mr McConnell's journey to parenthood was documented in a film called Seahorse and included his thoughts and footage of him going through fertility treatment, conception and the birth of his baby boy.
When he registered the birth of the child, he was told by a registrar that the law required people who give birth to be registered as mothers, the court heard.
Mr McConnell took legal action against the General Register Office, which is responsible for the registration of births and deaths in England and Wales, accusing it of discrimination.
He said it breached his human right to respect for private and family life.
Analysis: 'A missed opportunity'
By Ben Hunte, BBC LGBT correspondent
Initial reaction to the judgement has been varied - as well as transphobic comments being shared online, some people in support of the transgender community have also said they think that today's ruling was correct.
Some transgender individuals I have spoken to say they are "deeply disappointed" by this ruling, but they are not surprised by it.
Aside from legality, some see this decision as a "missed opportunity to send a much-needed positive message about transgender identity".
Legal representatives have told me that they are hopeful that if Freddy does not appeal, other transgender parents will continue with their fight for equality.
The ruling means that transgender people will not be recognised as their trans identities in all areas of their lives; in some circumstances, like this, they will now be forced to "out" their birth gender.
A transgender man, whose child calls them "Dad", will be listed on the child's birth certificate as their mother.
One transgender individual told me that this will cause further anxiety around trans parenting.
Had he been successful, Mr McConnell's son would have become the first person born in England and Wales not to legally have a mother.
In his ruling, Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the Family Division of the High Court, said: "There is a material difference between a person's gender and their status as a parent.
"Being a 'mother', whilst hitherto always associated with being female, is the status afforded to a person who undergoes the physical and biological process of carrying a pregnancy and giving birth.
"It is now medically and legally possible for an individual, whose gender is recognised in law as male, to become pregnant and give birth to their child.
"Whilst that person's gender is 'male', their parental status, which derives from their biological role in giving birth, is that of 'mother.'"
Sir Andrew added: "There would seem to be a pressing need for Government and Parliament to address square-on the question of the status of a trans-male who has become pregnant and given birth to a child."
Karen Holden, founder of A City Law Firm, who is representing Mr McConnell, said: "Equality shouldn't have to come at a price, but this case has taken three years, hours of work and manpower, public attention and yet the courts still failed to help this family set out its actual family structure correctly in terms of its legal status.
"A birth certificate will stay with a child for life and it will be factually and legally inaccurate under current rules."
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There have been anti-government protests in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and other cities after the Iranian authorities admitted they had "unintentionally" shot down a Ukrainian International Airlines plane.
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By Reality Check teamBBC News
Some of the protesters have been heard shouting slogans against the leadership.
So how strong is opposition in Iran, and what do the protesters want?
Who are they protesting against?
The crowds taking to the streets in recent days have been concentrated in Tehran and other cities such as Isfahan, and comprise mainly university students and others from the middle classes, angered by the deaths of those on the plane.
They have condemned the authorities for not initially telling the truth. But slogans have also been heard against the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Islamic regime.
"Lots of them will have known people on that plane as they are students who can afford to travel abroad," says the BBC's Rana Rahimpour.
There is also little sign of these protests concentrating around a particular personality. "It's hard to say there's a single figurehead right now that people can unite around," says Fatemeh Shams, an Iranian professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
What political opposition is allowed?
Iran's system allows for elections, but political groups must operate within the strict boundaries of the Islamic Republic.
In the 2016 parliamentary elections, nearly half of the candidates were disqualified by Iran's Guardian Council, which vets them for their commitment to Iran's Islamic system.
And for this year's parliamentary elections, which are due to be held in February, thousands of potential candidates have again been disqualified, including 90 current lawmakers.
Any candidates from groups opposed to the Islamic Republic, or who want to change the existing system altogether, are not allowed to run.
The Guardian Council can also bar any would-be presidential candidates, and veto any legislation passed by parliament if it is deemed to be inconsistent with Iran's constitution and Islamic law.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who is positioned at the top of Iran's political power structure, appoints half of the members of this body.
The Supreme Leader also controls the armed forces and makes decisions on security, defence and major foreign policy issues.
So in practice, the president and the parliament in Iran - even if they support change - have limited powers.
There are also opposition movements who want greater autonomy for ethnic minorities like the Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis and Azerbaijanis.
Some of these groups - like the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan - are armed and have fought for decades against the Iranian state.
Does the opposition have leaders?
There has been a movement pushing for reform in Iran for years, with Mohammad Khatami, the former president, as its figurehead.
In office from 1997 until 2005, Mr Khatami brought in limited social and economic reforms, and put out feelers to Western countries.
More extensive changes, however, were blocked by conservative interests, and Mr Khatami himself has been sidelined - with his movements and access to the media restricted.
In 2009, a major challenge to the regime came after a disputed presidential election, won by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Defeated candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi challenged the result and became leaders of what was called the Green Movement. Millions took to the streets to demand a re-run of the election, but Ayatollah Khamenei insisted the result was valid.
Tough action against protests
There was a widespread crackdown against demonstrators that year and dozens of opposition supporters were reportedly killed. Many of the top opposition figures were detained. Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi remain under house arrest over a decade later.
More recently, there were protests at the end of 2017 and in early 2018 over worsening economic conditions.
High levels of unemployment in some parts of the country had hit the relatively young population particularly hard.
The wealthier middle classes also joined these protests against the handling of the economy by the government of President Hassan Rouhani, who is considered a moderate.
Those taking part shouted slogans against the country's leaders, and calls were heard for the restoration of the monarchy, overthrown in 1979.
Protests erupted again in November 2019 after the government announced it was raising petrol prices by 50% as it struggled to cope with economic sanctions reinstated by the US when it abandoned the nuclear deal the previous year.
The unrest prompted a bloody crackdown by the security forces.
Amnesty International said more than 304 people were killed, but a Reuters news agency report put the death toll at 1,500. The Iranian authorities dismissed both figures. An internet shutdown lasted for some five days, virtually cutting off the country.
A feature of these more recent protests is that they have often been leaderless, and fuelled by grassroots anger over inflation, unemployment and widening inequality.
However, despite outbreaks of unrest, the government has managed to remain in control, using a combination of severe restrictions on opposition figures and repressive actions.
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MPs have accused the UK government of taking an "inflexible approach" over the future of Remploy factories.
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A report by the Scottish Affairs Committee claimed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had helped only to hamper the prospects, in particular, of Remploy Marine in Fife.
It called on the UK government to instruct Remploy to extend the timescale for bids for the business.
Remploy Marine is among a number of factories which are now up for sale.
The DWP said its priority during the process was to safeguard as many jobs for disabled people as possible.
In December, the government announced plans to cut funding for Remploy following a review of disability employment support.
A total of 36 factories were sold or closed in the first phase of this process, with the remainder being put up for sale.
Bidding process
In calling for an extension to the timescale for bids for Remploy Marine, the committee said the UK government should make "more appropriate transitional arrangements available" and ensure that social enterprises, mutuals and co-operatives were able to participate in the bidding process.
It also said the government had shown no sign of taking into account the wider social context, arguing it must be included in the assessment of "the value for money" offered by the bids.
Committee member Lindsay Roy, Labour MP for Glenrothes and Central Fife, said: "Remploy was created as a means of finding employment for disabled people.
"While we understand the reasoning behind moving the factories away from public ownership its original mission should be preserved.
"The government must focus on the social value of maintaining jobs for disabled people, and must pay more attention to the wider financial and social costs of the potential closure of such sites."
The MPs also argued that the "one-size-fits-all" approach did not take account of the unique circumstances and potential of Remploy Marine Fife, which produces 30,000 lifejackets a year.
Brown intervention
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown intervened earlier this year to try to persuade coalition ministers into a rethink on the future of two Fife factories, in Cowdenbeath and Leven.
In February he met the UK Work and Pensions Secretary to argue they had full order books and could be expanded.
The Cowdenbeath and Leven factories employ 64 disabled people and last year lost more than £1m, on a turnover of 900,000, according to the DWP.
The DWP said its priority during the sale process was to safeguard as many jobs for disabled people as possible, including offering a wage subsidy of up to £6,400 for every disabled worker.
A spokesman added: "The deadlines for the commercial process have been set to give employees and the businesses certainty about the future as soon as possible, while ensuring prospective bidders have time to develop credible proposals.
"We are following the advice of an independent review to use the specialist disability employment budget more effectively on successful schemes like Access to Work instead of losing millions of pounds in loss-making segregated factories."
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The BBC's director general Tony Hall is "effectively accountable to no-one", a new report by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee has claimed.
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The report is calling for a radical overhaul of the corporation's governance, and recommends the abolition of the BBC Trust.
It said Tony Hall "operates with too high a degree of independence".
The MPs have called for the BBC Board to be reformed with the addition of an independent Chair.
The BBC Trust, currently chaired by Rona Fairhead, came into effect following the 2006 Royal Charter Review, replacing the Board of Governors.
It is independent of BBC management, and its stated aim is to make decisions in the best interests of licence fee payers.
The Committee said the Chair of a reformed Board should be a "significant figure, ideally with acknowledged experience in managing large organisations".
The new Board would "support the director general in streamlining the organisation and cutting costs".
It would also "make it clearer where responsibilities lie, and cut down some of the confusion of purpose and bureaucracy that have undermined the existing governance arrangements for the BBC".
The report's other recommendations include a clearer boundary between the World Service and BBC World News, in particular relating to allocation of resources.
It was also suggested the BBC might help "sustain local news coverage" by "placing apprentices from the BBC's training schemes with local media outlets to help with their newsgathering".
In response to the report a spokesperson for the BBC Trust issued a statement:
"We welcome the committee's endorsement of the Trust's proposals in 2015 for substantial reform of the BBC's governance - including the creation of a unitary board and strong independent regulation, specific to the BBC."
The BBC itself also released a statement, which said it "supports the committee's assertion that the BBC's independence should be protected by taking it out of the political cycle, and agree with its proposal for an 11 or 12 year charter.
"Like the committee, we think the BBC should be externally regulated - we believe that a unitary board would be good for the BBC and strengthen accountability."
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The temporary shutdown of a building project during the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a multi-million pound claim against a council-owned company.
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By Fergus HewisonBBC Newcastle political reporter
Work on a £30m energy park in Blyth was mostly halted in late March by Advance Northumberland, a regeneration company owned by the Conservative-led council.
It has emerged that site contractor Farrans has launched a claim for losses, thought to be worth £5.5m.
Advance said the decision to close was taken to ensure the safety of staff.
It added that as well as stopping work over concerns about social distancing difficulties, there were also supply chain problems and staffing issues.
'Taken legal advice'
In evidence seen by the BBC, Northumberland County Council Chief Executive Daljit Lally - who has been put on "extended leave" - said she was not consulted and that Advance's managing director Ken Dunbar may have exceeded his authority and had not properly assessed the implications of halting construction.
Mrs Lally also said the Government had not ordered work to cease on construction sites at that point.
Mr Dunbar said he did have the authority to order the shutdown, had taken legal advice, assessed potential implications and worked with the council.
"Ultimately I, fully backed by a board of independent directors and directors who are also councillors, took the decision it was important we looked after the safety and welfare of the staff and closed sites down safely," he said.
He would not be drawn on the amount Farrans was claiming against Advance while negotiations were ongoing.
'Pressures from Covid-19'
Work has resumed at the Northumberland Energy Park site.
"The ultimate goal is that we will have a project that will attract hundreds of millions of pounds of investment and hundreds of jobs," he added.
No party has overall political control of the council but it is run by the Conservatives which has the largest number of councillors.
Councillor Susan Dungworth, Labour group leader, said: "We've been potentially handed a liability of £5.5m when like other local authorities up and down the country we're facing pressures from Covid."
Northumberland County Council said the issue was a "commercially sensitive matter" between a contractor and Advance.
Farrans has not responded to requests for comment.
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Passenger numbers are continuing to recover at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, according to the latest monthly figures.
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The airport said 118,634 passengers passed through Prestwick in May - a 14% increase on the same month last year.
It was the airport's eighth consecutive month of year-on-year passenger growth.
Airport chief executive Iain Cochrane said the figures for May were "extremely encouraging" and augured well for the rest of the year.
He added: "Summer numbers here will be further boosted by Ryanair's decision to add more flights to Malaga, Faro and Alicante in July.
"And as more Scots head for their summer holidays in June, July and August to destinations such as Spain, Italy and Poland, we expect to see passenger volumes continuing to increase over last year."
Prestwick was put up for sale more than a year ago by its New Zealand owners, Infratil, but has yet to attract a buyer.
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High Street shops that were prosecuted for selling illegal skin-whitening creams are continuing to do so, the BBC has found.
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By Ashni Lakhani & Elise WickerDigital Current Affairs
Trading Standards acknowledged "it's a really big problem" and more could be done to regulate the industry.
Substances containing hydroquinone and mercury are banned from being sold over-the-counter in the UK as they can cause liver, nerve and foetal damage.
But a lack of resources and data is making the problem hard to tackle.
A previous BBC investigation revealed the banned cosmetics were being sold across the UK.
Trading Standards is responsible for seizing the creams and prosecuting businesses that sell them. However, it appears convicted shop owners are undeterred by these fines, and are continuing to sell the products.
Undercover journalists visited 17 shops across London, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester to see how many illegal products they could purchase. Six of these shops had been previously prosecuted for selling the creams.
A total of 13 shops were found to sell products containing illegal substances.
Of the prosecuted shops, four out of the six resold banned products.
Meg Chucks was fined £1,400 as well as £1,040 of legal costs in October 2017. She sold skin-bleaching products at her TM Cosmetics in Moston, Greater Manchester. Fifty-one products in her shop contained hydroquinone.
Before being prosecuted, Ms Chucks had been warned by Trading Standards for importing similar types of products via Manchester Airport.
But despite warnings and fines, the BBC has undercover footage of her still selling a skin-whitening cream.
Ms Chucks admitted to an undercover researcher that she used the product herself. She claimed she did not know it was illegal, despite hydroquinone being listed as an ingredient on the box.
The Nigeria-manufactured product - Funbeaut-A - contained 3% hydroquinone, which is more than the strongest medicine containing hydroquinone licensed for prescription by UK doctors.
In Manchester, a freedom of information request (FoI) revealed Ms Chucks was the only shop owner to be prosecuted in 2017-18 for selling skin-whiteners, despite BBC researchers finding prohibited substances in other Manchester shops.
Ms Chucks refused our request for an interview.
'I would have lost my life'
Safi George used several illegal High Street bought bleaching cosmetics every day for 10 years. She spent more than £200 a month buying creams.
Scared to tell her doctor because of the taboo surrounding these creams, Safi suffered in silence.
She was eventually hospitalised for a week for extreme scarring and burning.
"I would have lost my life," she said.
"It's like taking drugs. It's not easy to tell someone to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop taking drugs."
Safi was so embarrassed about her use of skin-lightening creams that she began to treat her own scars, and did not seek medical assistance.
Her sister Tutu said: "When I saw her she was completely a white woman.
"All her stomach and all her hands were complete blisters. We went to A&E and they put her on antibiotics it was so bad."
The creams have left her with permanent scarring, and she thinks they are too readily available.
"If you can just display [skin whiteners] in a shop, I can just go there, [even] a 10-year-old, can pick it up and pay for it, that makes you think it's legal."
South London YouTubers Arlene Dihoulou and Mariam Omotunde used the skin-whitening creams when they were teenagers.
They had no idea the products they were using were illegal.
Arlene started using the treatments at the age of 16 because she wanted to "fit in".
"I used to look at my skin as really ugly."
"I just wanted to be desirable".
Mariam, 22, went to a local shop to purchase the creams. She did not read the ingredients, but just picked the products based on the skin colour of the lady on the bottle, assuming they were safe to use.
Both girls stopped using the products before they had damaging health consequences, but were shocked the illegal products were sold so openly in the shops.
Mariam added: "Don't they have people who come check what you're selling? The regulations obviously aren't doing their jobs if this is so readily available."
"We have the sugar tax now, because people see obesity as a big thing. A cause of that is fizzy drinks. So now the prices are higher and the sugar is less.
"So in the same way, this is something that needs to be highly monitored and regulated, because people can die from these creams."
Despite the damaging effects of the treatments, the BBC was told there is "no central collection of data" on the number of prosecutions, seizures or accusations across the country, resulting in a lack of understanding about the scale of the issue.
Trading Standards officer Cenred Elworthy said that some traders do stop selling the products after being prosecuted, although the BBC has contrary evidence to this. He said "secondary offenders are often not selling things that are blatantly, obviously full of illegal products".
Elworthy admits "no-one has actually served jail time for selling them" despite being caught still selling the illegal products while serving a suspended sentence.
He suggested the industry could be better regulated through "on-the-spot fines" for businesses selling the skin-whitening products, and clearer sentencing guidelines.
According to Mr Elworthy, Trading Standards could do more shop visits and seizures, but it struggles to after a 40% cut in resources over the past 10 years.
He believes a team of 50 to 60 enforcers would be required in London alone to tackle the issue.
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Myanmar's military rulers say they have fired the country's ambassador to the United Nations, a day after he called for help to remove the army from power.
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In an emotional speech, Kyaw Moe Tun said no-one should co-operate with the military until it handed back power to the democratically elected government.
UN sources told Reuters that as they do not recognise the junta, Kyaw Moe Tun remains Myanmar's UN ambassador.
Security forces intensified a crackdown on anti-coup protesters on Saturday.
Local media say dozens were arrested, and that a woman was shot in the city of Monwya. Her condition is not clear.
The country has been rocked by protests since top government leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, were overthrown and detained after the army took power on 1 February.
What did the UN ambassador say?
Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Friday, Kyaw Moe Tun urged the international community to use "any means necessary to take action" against the military to help "restore the democracy", saying he was representing Ms Suu Kyi's ousted government.
"We need further strongest possible action from the international community to immediately end the military coup, to stop oppressing the innocent people, to return the state power to the people and to restore the democracy," he said.
The speech was met with applause and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the new US envoy to the body, was among those praising his remarks as "courageous".
In a further show of defiance, Kyaw Moe Tun held up three fingers, a gesture against authoritarian rule that has been adopted by anti-coup protesters in the country.
Myanmar's state television announced his removal on Saturday, saying he had "betrayed the country and spoken for an unofficial organization which doesn't represent the country and had abused the power and responsibilities of an ambassador".
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a UN official told Reuters that as they do not officially recognise the junta as Myanmar's new government, they consider Kyaw Moe Tun to be still in post as the country's UN ambassador.
In a separate, official statement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric also said: "We have not received any communication concerning changes to the representation of Myanmar at the United Nations in New York."
What happened in the country on Saturday?
Further protests were held in several cities with water cannon reportedly deployed and journalists among dozens detained.
In the main city of Yangon, crowds of protesters were advanced upon by police firing tear gas. Witnesses who spoke to the Reuters news agency said people were arrested and beaten by police, who also reportedly fired into the air, with similar clashes reported in the second city of Mandalay.
A number of local media outlets reported that a woman had been shot at a protest in the central city of Monwya, close to Mandalay. Images and an alleged identity circulated on social media but have not been independently confirmed.
An ambulance service official later told the Reuters news agency she was in hospital, contradicting other reports she had died.
A medic in the town told the AFP news agency he had also seen a man "severely injured" in his leg with at least 10 others treated for more minor injuries. Local media there also reported alleged beatings by plainclothes officers.
Protesters in some places, including Yangon, were seen building makeshift barricades to try and hinder the crackdown against them.
General Min Aung Hlaing has defended the coup he led, but at least three protesters and one policeman have died so far in violence against it.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group, more than 770 people have been arrested and sentenced since the coup began.
At least three journalists were detained on Saturday including a photographer from the Associated Press, the AFP news agency reported.
What is the background to protests?
Military leaders justified the seizure of power by alleging widespread fraud in November elections, which Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.
She was placed under house arrest and charged with possessing illegal walkie-talkies and violating the country's Natural Disaster Law. But there is growing uncertainty about her whereabouts amid reports on an independent news website on Friday that she had been moved to an undisclosed location.
A lawyer for the 75-year-old ousted leader told Reuters he had also heard she was moved and has been given no access to her ahead of her next hearing.
The army has ordered internet blackouts and also banned social media platforms but demonstrations have continued daily. The coup has been widely condemned outside Myanmar, prompting sanctions against the military and other punitive moves.
Myanmar - the basics
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An ambulance company that provides patient transport in North Lincolnshire is to lose its contract.
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Thames Ambulance Service was ordered to make improvements to its service following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The NHS North Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said it intended "to commission a new service".
Thames Ambulance Service said it was "really disappointed" as it had made "significant improvements".
More on this and other North Lincolnshire stories
The CCG said it had been working with the company "to address ongoing performance issues".
It added: "While we have seen improvements in performance as a result of this work, our patients are still continuing to experience difficulties with the service provided.
"We are disappointed to have reached this position. However, it is extremely important to us that our local population receives good care."
The CQC report highlighted comments made by its own staff that the ambulance firm was "inept and disorganised", as well as complaints from patients about frequent delays, or ambulances not arriving at all.
Holly Mumby-Croft, chair of the North Lincolnshire Health Scrutiny Panel, said she was "pleased" at the CCG's decision.
"It is not acceptable - they were failing our residents by providing a shoddy service, despite being given every opportunity to improve.
"These are vulnerable people who need to get to and from hospital for their appointments. Our residents deserve much better."
Thames Ambulance Service also has contracts to provide patient transport service in other parts of Lincolnshire and Hull.
It said it would work with the CCG "to continue focusing on providing further improvements for our patients".
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Future Moon colonists should be able to use lunar rocks to create tools or spare parts, according to a study.
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US researchers have used a 3D printer to make small objects out of melted simulated lunar rocks.
They say the technique could help future missions to minimise the weight and the expense of carrying materials into space as a digital file would be enough.
But one expert says such a printer would have to be extremely precise.
In 2010, Nasa asked a team from Washington State University to see whether it was possible to use lunar rocks for 3D printing.
It supplied the researchers with simulated Moon rocks, or lunar regolith simulant, containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides.
Many hundreds of kilograms of Moon rocks were collected during Nasa missions, but the scientists did not use them because they are considered a national treasure in the US.
Lunar regolith simulant is commonly used for research purposes at Nasa.
"It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really possible," said Prof Amit Bandyopadhyay, the lead author of the study, published in the Rapid Prototyping Journal.
His team created simple 3D shapes by sending a digital file or scan to a printer which then built the items layer by layer out of melted lunar regolith, fed via a carefully controlled nozzle to form a shape. The process is known as "additive manufacturing".
A laser was used to melt the material.
"As long as you can have additive manufacturing set up, you may be able to scoop up and print whatever you want. It's not that far-fetched," said Prof Bandyopadhyay.
The research demonstrates the latest advances in 3D printing technology, which is already in use in medicine, fashion, car manufacturing and other industries.
Sophisticated
But Prof Colin Pillinger, the scientist behind the ill-fated Beagle-2 mission to Mars, said the printer would have to be really precise to be able to fabricate complex parts that usually make up the body of a spacecraft.
"It would be nice if you could do that but I'm not sure it would work - it depends whether it is a simple mechanical component or something more complex," Prof Pillinger, who now works at the Planetary and Space Sciences department at the Open University, told BBC News.
"If you break your car on a motorway and have to replace your wheel, and you just print one it's a mechanical component, but if it's something more sophisticated like an electrical component to run your car, it's a different story.
"Of course, if you don't have to take a wheel to the Moon its great, but if it's not a mechanical part that breaks but something more sophisticated then I'm not sure it would work."
However, David Woods, author of How Apollo Flew to the Moon, was more positive.
"The important thing to consider is that the Earth has a very deep gravity well so anything you can make in situ on the Moon will save an awful lot of energy and therefore money," he said.
"So it's better to be able to live off the land. That's why scientists are so interested in water at poles, and the fact Moon dust works well with microwaves and could theoretically be used to make a paved surface if you created roads.
"Such technologies are untested but they do open up the possibility of future colonisation of the Moon, even if only for scientific purposes."
But putting the theory into practice may be some way off. A project to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2020 was cancelled by President Obama on cost grounds, though Nasa still has longer-term plans for a lunar return.
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Coastguards have found what they think is wreckage of a yacht in the search for a missing 65-year-old yachtswoman.
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The wreckage found at Sennen Cove came during an air and sea search off the north Cornwall coast for Mary Unwin.
She has been missing since she set sail from Mousehole, in Cornwall, on Saturday evening for her home in Bideford in north Devon.
Relatives in Bideford raised the alarm on Sunday. Coastguards said the wreckage was being analysed.
She bought the £32,000 Seagair in Falmouth last Thursday.
Mrs Unwin left Falmouth on her own in the yacht on Friday without collecting the paperwork.
She was advised by the sellers Falmouth Yacht Brokers not to make the trip on her own.
Jayne Hobkirk, of Falmouth Yacht Brokers, said Mrs Unwin had appeared on Thursday with her husband and paid for the boat with a banker's draft.
"She said she had a captain's ticket, but it sounded like she hadn't done any sailing for many years," she said.
"I told her to get a refresher course, but that would normally take some days."
'Big area to search'
Lifeboats from Penlee, Sennen and St Ives and helicopters from RNAS Culdrose and RMB Chivenor have joined the search.
Coastguards have also been searching harbours around the coast for the Seagair which is white with a blue stripe along its hull.
Steve Huxley, search and rescue manager at Falmouth Coastguard, said: "The woman departed Mousehole on Saturday evening on board her newly-purchased vessel.
"We understand that she was heading for Bideford. We have been unable to find her and are very concerned for her safety."
The Seagair, built in 1985, was described by the brokers as having been "maintained in excellent condition" and "in great condition for her age".
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The committee conducting the official UK Iraq war inquiry has said it intends to visit Iraq later this year.
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Chairman Sir John Chilcot said he wanted to hear "Iraqi perspectives" and see first-hand the "consequences" of UK involvement in the 2003 war.
After the final scheduled public hearing, Sir John said witnesses could be recalled if there were "conflicts or gaps" in the evidence.
He restated his intention to publish his report by the turn of the year.
After nearly seven months of public hearings, Sir John said the committee would begin to "integrate and analyse" the information it had receive as it began the process of writing the report.
The final report would be "full, thorough, evidence based and frank", he stressed.
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A 15-year-old with liver disease has raised £1,100 for charity by singing at the weekly Clap for Our Carers.
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Josh Morton, from St George in Bristol, has auto-immune hepatitis and frequently receives treatment at Bristol Children's Hospital.
He built a stage in his garden and for 10 weeks kicked off his street's weekly applause with a 30-minute performance.
He said it was "really special" reaching his fundraising target of £1,000 on the final official clap.
When Josh was born, his parents were told he may not survive and it was likely he would be unable to walk and talk.
He decided he wanted to give something back to the doctors, nurses and other hospital staff who have supported him over the years.
Serenading his neighbours with hits by Frank Sinatra, Take That, Neil Diamond and The Wurzels, the teenager has raised £1,150 for Wallace and Gromit's Grand Appeal.
"I'm so grateful to the doctors and nurses that saved my life and continue to support me now," he said.
Kate Jones, from the Grand Appeal, which raises money for Bristol Children's Hospital, said it was touched by Josh's support.
"As a charity, the pandemic has had a significant impact on our income," she said.
"So many of our fundraising plans have been cancelled or put on indefinite hold, but with the help of inspirational people like Josh, we can continue to provide the much-needed services that support the doctors and nurses on the front line."
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Student flats facing demolition because they breached guidelines have been awarded planning permission after an appeal.
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Last year Ceredigion council demanded that two blocks in Aberystwyth be pulled down by June this year.
It accused property developer Geraint Dafis of ignoring an enforcement notice for one block called Ty Newydd and he was fined £20,000 in court last year.
Mr Dafis denied the charge and the fine was cut to £5,000 on appeal last week.
Ty Newydd and an extension to the Boar's Head Hotel flats next door, which are also owned by Mr Dafis, were both facing demolition and had been issued with an enforcement notice.
It followed two retrospective planning applications for an extension to the Boar's Head flats which were refused.
Both blocks of flats are thought to house up to 50 students.
A council spokesman said: "Mr Dafis has now received planning permission for the entire development by virtue of the Inspector's appeal decision. Therefore, there is no requirement to demolish any building.
"As the local planning authority, the council has followed planning legislation in pursuing Mr Dafis for the unauthorised development and issued an enforcement notice against that development."
Breach
Ceredigion council said last year Mr Dafis had been given planning permission in 2010 to build a detached three-bedroom family house with a garage and parking in Queen's Road, Aberystwyth.
However, it said he erected a far bigger building with at least double the bedrooms, three large bathrooms and considerably more living areas.
There was also no space available for parking and, rather than a single family home, it had been used to accommodate students, the council added.
The authority said after Mr Dafis failed to comply with an enforcement notice on Ty Newydd requiring the building to be demolished, he was prosecuted for breach of the notice.
Aberystwyth Magistrates' Court fined him £20,000 at a trial last August under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
But the fine was reduced to £5,000 on appeal at Swansea Crown Court last Friday.
Geraint Dafis has been asked to comment.
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The ex-husband and father of an alleged "honour killing" victim have been remanded in custody for a further 15 days by a judge in Pakistan.
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Samia Shahid, 28, from Bradford, died in the country in July.
Chaudhry Muhammad Shakeel is accused of her murder while her father Chaudhry Muhammad Shahid is being held as a suspected accessory to the crime.
The pair will next appear in court in Jhelum, in the northern Punjab province, on 26 November.
Both were returned to prison following a request by a lawyer acting for Ms Shahid's second husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazim, for more time to review the case.
Neither Mr Shakeel nor Mr Shahid have been formally charged and their lawyers have previously argued there is no evidence against them.
Last month Ms Shahid's mother, Imtiaz BiBi, and sister, Madiha Shahid, were both declared proclaimed offenders in Pakistan meaning police believe they were involved in her death and want to question them.
Arrest warrants were issued by a judge when they did not appear in court.
Police are applying for a red notice - an international alert for a wanted person - from Interpol. The process is expected to take weeks or even months before one is issued.
The BBC understands extradition requests have not yet been made to the UK authorities.
Ms Shahid, a beautician, married Mr Kazim in Leeds in 2014 and the couple moved to Dubai.
Mr Kazim has claimed his wife, who died while visiting relatives in Pakistan, was killed because her family disapproved of their marriage.
Initially it was claimed she had died of a heart attack but a post-mortem examination found she had been strangled.
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Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday morning. We'll have another update for you at 18:00 GMT.
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1. Pupils to be told which exam topics they will face
Extra measures to "boost fairness and support students" will be used for next summer's GCSE and A-level exams in England, ministers say. A headteachers' union describes the proposal, which includes more generous grading, advance notice of exam topics and additional papers, as "a reasonable package" to make up for the disruption faced by students during the pandemic.
2. How will the new vaccine work?
After the announcement that vaccinations against Covid-19 will start in the UK as early as next week, our health correspondent Laura Foster explains who will get it first and how. You can find all you need to know about the UK's vaccination plans on our dedicated coronavirus page.
3. Questions over use of 'do not resuscitate' orders
Doctors may have made "do not resuscitate" decisions on a blanket basis when care services were under extreme pressure during the first wave of the pandemic, a watchdog says. The Care Quality Commission says the number of complaints about the use of such orders jumped to 40 between March and September, compared with nine in the previous six months.
4. 'Coronavirus ended our marriage'
"We started to fight about things. Futile, unimportant things." That's the observation of just one of many couples whose relationship has suffered during the pandemic. Anecdotally, divorce lawyers in the UK and US have reported significant increases in enquiries, with one firm in Washington DC recording 70% more calls this October than last.
5. 'More than good news, it's a game changer'
With NHS staff set to be among the first to get the newly-approved Pfizer vaccine, Newsbeat has been hearing how it will change the lives of under-pressure NHS staff. "It feels like a glimmer hope on what's been such a difficult year," says Cardiff doctor Sara Otung, who has been keeping herself away from vulnerable loved-ones since March.
Get a longer daily news briefing from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning, by signing up here.
And don't forget...
You can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.
If you're concerned about the safety of the coronavirus vaccines, BBC News online health editor Michelle Roberts runs through the precautions taken ahead of approval.
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An Australian Olympic rower who was arrested in Surrey on suspicion of damaging a shop front has been ordered to apologise and pay for the repairs.
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Joshua Booth, 21, who competed in the men's eight on Wednesday, was held in Egham, in the early hours of Thursday.
Australian deputy chef de mission Chris Fydler said Booth had been told to pay £1,400 to repair the damage.
Surrey Police said Booth had admitted full responsibility for the damage and the matter had now been resolved.
It said officers had spoken to the owners of two damaged properties and, "following an offer of reparations to cover the costs of repairs by Mr Booth, the victims are satisfied that the matter can be dealt with without the need for criminal charges".
A statement said police would not be taking any further criminal action against Booth and his bail had been cancelled.
'Clearly embarrassing'
Mr Fydler added: "We expect higher standards from our athletes.
"This has been an embarrassing situation not just for rowing but for us as well. We expect a much higher standard of behaviour from all of our athletes and we'll certainly be reminding the section managers, as various sports start to complete, that a level of behaviour is expected of their athletes."
Booth made his Olympic debut on Wednesday, when the Australians finished sixth in the six-crew final of the eight at Eton Dorney, in which Germany came first.
The shop front was damaged in nearby Egham about 12 hours later.
The rower also had to be taken to hospital after he fainted and hit his head at the police station, a press conference at the Olympic Park heard earlier this week.
Booth was arrested on Wednesday and bailed until Friday, but not charged.
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European funding for a proposed cross-border bridge that would link counties Down and Louth has been withdrawn.
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The Special European Union Programmes Body (SEUPB) had pledged £14.5m (17.4m euro) towards the Narrow Water project.
But it has withdrawn its offer because additional funding had not been found.
South Down MP, the SDLP's Margaret Ritchie, said she was "extremely disappointed" at the announcement.
A SEUPB statement said: "Following comprehensive discussions on the financial viability of the Narrow Water Bridge with the project's lead partner (East Border Region Ltd and Louth County Council), the SEUPB has decided to withdraw the letter of offer. The additional funding required to deliver the project has not been secured."
Ms Ritchie said: "I am extremely disappointed that the SEUPB find themselves in this position of withdrawing funding.
'Political will'
"I am still of the belief that the Narrow Water Bridge would be an important economic stimulus for the local area of south Down and County Louth in terms of job creation, investment and tourism opportunities.
"I would still hope that it would be possible for both governments together to bring forward a scheme for funding this important project."
She also questioned the timing of the announcement, which comes ahead of a meeting on the issue with Northern Ireland's first and deputy first ministers at Stormont on Monday.
Caitríona Ruane, Sinn Féin MLA for South Down, said: "The project can still go ahead in the near future if the political will exists.
"The funding necessary to make the bridge a reality was already in place. All that was needed was a commitment for a 6m euro (£5m) funding package from the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) and the Department of Transport.
"At a time when the construction industry desperately needs investment this project can create 270 jobs for a relatively small investment by the government."
Focus minds
The proposed development was by Louth County Council in association with Newry and Mourne District Council.
The cable-stayed bridge, 195m (640ft) long, has been in the planning for at least five years and would have connected Cornamucklagh near Omeath, County Louth with Narrow Water near Warrenpoint, County Down, at an historic crossing point.
The entire build would have been 620m (2,040ft) long and it had been hoped it could be open by 2015.
Backers of the scheme claimed it was crucial to the prospects for economic regeneration and reconciliation of the border community in Louth and Down.
Declan Breathnach, chairman of Louth County Council, said the decision should focus minds.
"It was not unexpected. They are under severe pressure to spend," he said.
"I think this should focus the minds on what is a shovel-ready project and if people really want the bridge to happen, as three local authorities and the majority of public representatives do, then it will focus the minds in the Taoiseach's office and the Northern Ireland executive."
Elected representatives and politicians from both sides of the border attended a meeting at Louth County Council on Friday to confirm their continued support for the project.
Above budget
They have sought "urgent meetings" with the first and deputy first ministers and the Irish prime minister.
Stormont's finance department was the last body to commit to fund the scheme with £2.7m allocated to the bridge. In May, Finance Minister Sammy Wilson gave approval for the project on a number of financial conditions and undertakings from both Louth and Newry and Mourne councils.
In July, however, council bosses in County Louth pulled out after bids for the job from construction firms came in substantially above budget.
Narrow Water was the spot where a convoy of British paratroopers were blown up by a remote control roadside bomb in 1979. It was the Army's greatest loss of life in one day in the Northern Ireland Troubles with 18 soldiers killed.
The SEUPB said it was now looking to reallocate the funding to other eligible projects.
A spokesman added: "The SEUPB is now exploring options for the reallocation of this funding to eligible projects capable of being delivered by December 2015 to ensure that the drawdown of funds from the European Commission is maximised and that no money is lost to the Northern Ireland or Ireland economies."
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China has said Hong Kong will suspend extradition treaties with Britain, Canada and Australia, after they took similar steps over the territory's controversial new security law.
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The foreign ministry spokesman accused the countries of "gross interference in China's internal affairs".
New Zealand made the same move after the other three. China said it reserved the right to respond to this too.
The law reduces the city's autonomy and makes it easier to punish protesters.
"Judicial co-operation has been politically manipulated by Canada, Australia and the UK - a wrong move that damages the conditions for such co-operation and deviates from its purpose of upholding justice and the rule of law," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
"Therefore China has decided that the Hong Kong special administrative region will suspend its agreements of surrendering fugitive offenders and of mutual assistance in criminal matters with Canada, Australia and the UK."
The three countries, along with New Zealand and the US, are part of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance. The US has signalled it plans to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong.
The US has decided to rescind Hong Kong's special trading privileges after the new law was enacted.
Earlier this month US lawmakers approved sanctions in response to the law, targeting banks that do business with Chinese officials involved in cracking down on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's government says the widely criticised law is required to bring order to a city that saw mass pro-democracy protests last year which often turned violent.
Announcing New Zealand's move earlier on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said China had "eroded rule-of-law principles, undermined the 'one country, two systems' framework that underpins Hong Kong's unique status, and gone against commitments China made to the international community".
Travel advice has also been updated to alert New Zealanders to risks presented by the law.
Military and dual-use goods and technology exports from New Zealand to Hong Kong will now be treated in the same way as New Zealand treats such exports to China.
Canada and Australia said they were suspending their extradition treaties with Hong Kong in early July. The UK announced its decision last week.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the "imposition" of the new security law in Hong Kong by Beijing was a "serious violation" of the country's international obligations.
The UK and others fear the new arrangement could see anyone extradited to Hong Kong from their territory being subsequently sent on to China.
Beijing introduced the security law at the end of June, creating new offences which could see Hong Kong residents sent to mainland China for trial.
Critics said it could see pro-democracy protesters in the region being served with life sentences.
They have also said the law breaches an agreement made with the UK before Hong Kong - a former British colony - was handed over to China in 1997.
Under the 50-year agreement, China enshrined civil liberties - including the right to protest, freedom of speech and the independence of the judiciary - in Hong Kong's Basic Law, an approach which came to be known as "one country, two systems".
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Leaders of a worldwide dissident Anglican movement are meeting in London to discuss how to sustain traditional Christian beliefs.
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The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) grew out of concern over developments in some national Churches.
Many Anglicans, particularly in Africa, object to the ordination of gay bishops in the US.
Some 200 delegates from 29 countries are expected to attend the leadership conference at a south London church.
'Biblical teaching'
The FCA was founded following the Gafcon (Global Anglican Future) conference in Jerusalem in 2008.
The fellowship was an attempt by more traditional Christians to re-assert what its leaders regard as authentic biblical teaching.
The conference is being held at St Mark's church in Battersea Rise.
One of the participants, Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen, has described the FCA as "the only game in town".
"It is a point of rallying Anglicans from around the world. Of exciting them again about the gospel of Jesus.
"It is the mainstream. It represents, the people involved in it, represents the vast majority of Anglicans," Archbishop Jensen told BBC correspondent John McManus.
Archbishop Jensen said he appreciated that the current head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, has had a difficult job in trying to keep the organisation united in the face of widely-differing world views.
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Portugal is a world leader in renewable energy. More than half its energy comes from wind, solar and hydro power. But as the country struggles through a record recession will their sustainability drive ground to a halt?
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By Charlotte AshtonThe World Tonight
For a few glorious hours at the end of 2011, Portugal's entire electricity need was met by renewable sources of energy.
They have the world's largest solar farm, Europe's largest wind farm and extensive hydro-electric dam infrastructure.
And in the Atlantic waters off the coast of Peniche, 62 miles (100km) north of Lisbon, scientists hope to achieve another first in sustainability.
Finnish energy company AW Energy is days from fixing its WaveRoller machine to the ocean floor.
Three fibreglass panels, 100 sq m (1,076 sq ft) each in size, will swing back and forth with the motion of the waves on hinges attached to control stations anchored to the ocean floor.
The energy this movement generates will feed into Portugal's national electricity grid.
"We need this kind of activity in Europe. There are so many places this technology could be deployed," says project manager Jussi Akerberg.
"In my dreams one day the sea will replace the oil field."
"If we can provide Portugal with the means to utilise its huge coastal energy resource there will be jobs in energy production, maintenance and the sale of the energy itself," Mr Akerberg says.
And jobs are what Portugal most desperately needs - unemployment is above 15% and rising.
But the country already has more renewable energy than it can use.
There are hours during the night when the amount of electricity generated by renewable sources exceeds demand, so the surplus goes to waste.
If consumption by Portuguese households was more consistent, less precious energy would be captured in vain.
"We have the most extensive network of public electric vehicle charging points in Europe," says Prof Paulo Ferrao who runs the energy initiative at Lisbon's top engineering and technology university, IST.
"If there was a large number of electric vehicles in the country it would contribute a lot to storing energy during excessive periods. For example during the night when the wind blows a lot and there is not enough demand."
"But we are just waiting for them to become affordable," says Prof Ferrao.
Subsidies for electric vehicles - and domestic solar panels - have been cut by the current Portuguese government.
They have slashed public spending in order to meet the conditions of the austerity agreement signed with the IMF and European Union last May in return for a 78bn euro (£63bn) bailout.
But Prof Farrao says there are changes people could make for free to make better use of the country's renewable energy infrastructure.
IT start-up company Watt-IS has developed software that analyses data transmitted by smart electricity meters, which are already being installed by utility companies around Europe.
Thirty million UK households will have them by 2019.
It produces individual reports for every household detailing exactly how the owners could save electricity - and therefore money.
It might tell you to defrost your fridge more regularly, to turn your TV off standby or to put your washing machine on at night, when electricity is cheaper in Portugal.
"If every household in Portugal adopted these measures we'd avoid 700 gigawatt hours of consumption, which is more than one of the most under-utilised power plants in Portugal.
"In the UK they're planning to phase out one quarter of their thermal power plants and substitute them for new ones this could also lead to the avoidance of new power plants being built," says Watt-IS co-founder Miguel Carvalho.
Consumers' heightened need to save money makes Watt-IS' service very attractive. But the financial crisis also means that this small start-up is finding it difficult to attract funding.
"If we could learn from the US and improve the overall entrepreneurial environment, it would be easier.
"At the moment this country has 15% unemployment, the number of unemployed graduates has doubled to more than 115,000. So this sort of company, which needs highly skilled people could be very important indeed," adds Carvalho.
The potential here in Portugal for sustainable growth is as significant as the progress it has already made.
But could other countries replicate their progress?
Manuel Pinho led the infrastructure investment drive in 2005 as minister for economy and innovation.
He now lectures at universities in the US and China and says the financial crisis makes investment in renewable technology very unlikely.
"Most of these projects are financed on a long-term basis so they're very sensitive to interest rates and with the cost of capital in southern Europe it would be unrealistic," says Mr Pinho.
In the US Professor Pinho says the low price of natural gas makes wind power uncompetitive, but he adds that heavy investment in Brazil and China gives him reason for hope.
Indeed one of China's state owned energy companies, Three Gorges Corp, has just bought a 21% stake in Portugal's biggest power producer, which was up for grabs in the recent sell-off of state-owned assets here.
Some reason for hope perhaps that the sustainability lessons from Portugal will not drown entirely in these stormy economic seas.
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Some parents' reaction to a row over LGBT teaching has been "increasingly bitter and polarised", an MP has said.
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Roger Godsiff, whose Birmingham constituency covers one of the schools involved, spoke during a Commons debate on the issue.
He applauded what he said were 256 schools in the city which had "got the teaching right", while two schools seemed to have "gone very wrong".
Education minister Nick Gibb said the government would support schools.
The row, sparked by storybooks featuring different families, has caused protests outside schools in Birmingham since January.
Mr Godsiff has previously supported protesters outside the school gates.
The Labour MP for Hall Green was given a warning by Labour's chief whip, Nick Brown, on 14 June not to repeat his support for the protesters outside Anderton Park.
They argue that pupils are "too young" to learn about LGBT relationships, which they also say contradict Islam.
During the debate, Mr Godsiff said: "I do not accept the argument where there couldn't have been parents' meetings at the [two schools involved]."
Parents were "entirely excluded" from consultation on the teaching, Mr Godsiff said.
The MP added: "I came to the conclusion that the parents that were protesting had some valid reasons for doing so, as the head teacher seemed totally unwilling to have meetings with parents to address their concerns and seek a comprise way of resolving the conflict."
He also criticised the head teacher of Anderton Park Primary School - Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson - for what he said were tweets that contributed to a "breakdown of trust" between the school and parents.
The BBC has approached Ms Hewitt-Clarkson for a response.
Mr Godsiff said the protesters were "mostly young mothers who have done nothing wrong than be good mothers who want to express concerns about what their children are telling them".
He added: "To call parents who are participating in highly organised police supervised protests a 'mob' which needs to be 'sorted'; which accuses Muslim parents, mostly young women, of 'homophobic hatred'. I don't think that is helpful in reducing tension."
The MP had previously been criticised after admitting he had not read the books used in the teaching.
Labour MP Angela Eagle said the motivations of some protesters had been "reactionary".
She said: "We aren't going to get back into the closet or hide or be ashamed... and nor are we going to allow a generation of pupils that are now in school to go through what the pupils of the '80s had to go through, because this chamber let them down. And nor are we going to let this to happen in the name of religion."
Education minister Nick Gibb said the government had introduced the regulations for making relationships and sex education compulsory in schools, and was determined to press ahead with the policy.
He said: "We will be on the side of the head teacher in making these decisions because we do believe that ultimately the content of the curriculum is a matter for schools."
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An image and short film has been encoded in DNA, using the units of inheritance as a medium for storing information.
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By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website
Using a genome editing tool known as Crispr, US scientists inserted a gif - five frames of a horse galloping - into the DNA of bacteria.
Then the team sequenced the bacterial DNA to retrieve the gif and the image, verifying that the microbes had indeed incorporated the data as intended.
The results appear in Nature journal.
For their experiments, the team from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, used an image of a human hand and five frames of the horse Annie G captured in the late 19th Century by the British photography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge.
In order to insert this information into the genomes of bacteria, the researchers transferred the image and the movie onto nucleotides (building blocks of DNA), producing a code that related to the individual pixels of each image.
The researchers then employed the Crispr platform, in which two proteins are used to insert genetic code into the DNA of target cells - in this case, those of E.coli bacteria.
For the gif, sequences were delivered frame-by-frame over five days to the bacterial cells.
The data were spread across the genomes of multiple bacteria, rather than just one, explained co-author Seth Shipman, from Harvard University in Massachusetts.
"The information is not contained in a single cell, so each individual cell may only see certain bits or pieces of the movie. So what we had to do was reconstruct the whole movie from the different pieces," Dr Shipman told the BBC.
"Maybe a single cell saw a few pixels from frame one and a few pixels from frame four... so we had to look at the relation of all those pieces of information in the genomes of these living cells and say: can we reconstruct the entire movie over time?"
To "read" the information back, the researchers sequenced the bacterial DNA and used custom computer code to unscramble the genetic information, which spits out the images.
The team was able to achieve 90% accuracy: "We were really happy with how it came out," Seth Shipman told me.
Eventually, the team wants to use the technique to create "molecular recorders".
Dr Shipman says these are cells that can "encode information about what's going on in the cell and what's going on in the cell environment by writing that information into their own genome".
This is why the researchers used images and a movie: images because they represent the kind of complex information the team would like to use in future, and movies because they have a timing component.
The timing component is important because it would be useful to track changes in a cell and its environment over time.
Follow Paul on Twitter.
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A renewable energy provider has taken a £500,000 stake in the company hoping to build a £850m tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay.
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The six-mile, U-shaped seawall will go from Swansea docks to near Swansea University's new Fabian Way campus.
Good Energy, which has 40,000 customers, is investing in the project which could provide power for 120,000 homes if plans are realised.
Its founder is the wife of the chief executive of the tidal project.
Juliet Davenport's business has secured an option to buy 10% of the power output and bought a stake in the project.
Tidal Lagoon (Swansea Bay) has submitted an application to build the lagoon and, if it receives the green light, tidal power from the site is projected to be connected to the National Grid by 2018.
Good Energy founder and chief executive Juliet Davenport said: "This project will enable us to diversify our business by adding tidal energy to our existing portfolio of renewable energy generation.
"This forms part of our long-term strategy of investing in UK renewable generation assets, securing renewable electricity for our rapidly-growing customer base and playing a part in helping the UK secure its energy future."
In March, the Planning Inspectorate invited the public to make its representation about the lagoon which could provide power for 120 years.
It would take two years to build and create 1,850 construction jobs.
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Plans to reshuffle the maternity unit at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital over the summer have been scrapped.
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It would have seen the Silver Star Unit, which specialises in high-risk patients, moved from level six to level five for the second summer in a row.
The move last year, due to a shortage of midwives, raised fears that separating vulnerable patients from specialist staff could jeopardise care.
But the hospital has now decided to keep Silver Star on level six.
'Monitor arrangements'
It said a reorganisation would still see an overall reduction of four beds over the summer but it believed this would not affect care.
In a statement the hospital said: "After consultation within the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust the maternity department has revised its plans for summer staffing in maternity services.
"The maternity service will now continue to work on both levels five and six but with a reduced number of beds on level six.
"We will reduce the number of beds on level six by eight, to 17. We will then increase the number on level five by four beds.
"We will be monitoring these arrangements very closely to ensure that services are being provided at the high quality level we would expect, and, if necessary, we may need to revise these plans."
The hospital, which said the changes were needed to cope with staffing levels over the summer holidays, intends to return to the usual number of beds at the end of September.
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Plans to temporarily close Stafford Hospital's accident and emergency (A&E) unit at night have been approved.
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Managers met on Thursday to discuss the future of emergency services at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The trust has approved a three-month closure of A&E from 22:00 until 08:00, starting on 1 December.
It estimates about 27 patients every night would have to seek help at hospitals in Wolverhampton, Walsall, Stoke-on-Trent and Burton.
Chief Executive, Lynn Hill-Tout, said there was a national shortage of A&E consultants and adverse publicity had further hampered the hospital's recruitment efforts.
"Our Emergency Department is safe," said Ms Hill-Tout.
"However because of the number of doctor vacancies we need to close it temporarily at night, which will allow resources to be focused on daytime activity, thus increasing quality of care and this will also allow a period for intense staff development.
"Our overriding concern is to keep patients safe.
"I am very aware of the concerns of local people and I can assure them that there is no intention for this to be a permanent closure."
Contingency plans
The leader of Stafford Borough Council, Mike Heenan, is planning to head a delegation to London to fight for the return of a full time A&E department for Stafford Hospital.
Councillor Heenan said it was "an unfortunate" decision which affects the 300,000 people the hospital served.
"They have announced this to be a temporary closure but I and my colleagues will want assurances from the minister [Heath Minister Simon Burns] that it will be only temporary and a 24/7 A&E service will be restored as soon as possible."
The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust is now making contingency plans to cope with more patients.
Its Chief Executive David Loughton said: "Clearly, this will have a direct impact on A&E services here at New Cross Hospital [in Wolverhampton], and we are now planning what this will mean for us."
Julia Bridgewater, Chief Executive at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire Trust, said: "We are one NHS and all of us have an obligation to help provide safe care of good quality for patients throughout the country.
"Because University Hospital has nine Emergency consultants, we are in a reasonable position to offer support to night-time emergency patients who would otherwise have attended Stafford Hospital.
"We will need to look at night time staffing levels and the impact on bed capacity.
"The Trust is soon to be granted Trauma Centre status and, with the move into the new hospital next March, it means that we will be in a position to lend our support.
"It should be noted that University Hospital already takes patients from the Stafford area suffering from various conditions, such as hyper acute stroke and trauma patients."
Public inquiry
Last month the A&E department at Stafford Hospital was issued with a formal warning after inspectors found a lack of suitably qualified or trained nursing staff on duty during an unannounced visit.
Ms Hill-Tout said the warning had come as a surprise because A&E was regularly discussed with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the primary care trust, the strategic health authority and Monitor.
After a follow-up inspection, the CQC said it only had moderate concerns about the department.
Stafford Hospital has been the subject of an 11-month public inquiry after a higher than expected number of deaths from 2005 to 2008.
The inquiry has been looking at the role of health monitoring and regulatory bodies at the hospital during the three-year period.
It has heard from 179 people, including patients, staff, relatives, politicians and regulators.
The chairman is due to publish a final report in the new year.
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Anyone with symptoms that could be cancer must talk to their GP, even as Covid cases increase across the country, cancer experts say.
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Thousands fewer people than normal are being referred for hospital tests - particularly for lung and prostate cancer, Cancer Research UK says.
Although numbers are improving, they are still lower than before lockdown in March.
But GPs say delays in getting tests, scans and X-rays haven't improved.
"There has been a really devastating impact on cancer services," said Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK.
"But people need to come forward - the difference is now in numbers presenting with symptoms."
Although NHS staff had worked tirelessly to keep care going during the pandemic, she said it was "essential" that cancer services were kept "up and running" this winter.
Data for England shows that urgent referrals for lung cancer are still only at 60% of their normal level, and urological cancers (prostate, bladder and kidney) are at 78%.
But other cancers, such as breast and bowel cancer, have returned to nearly normal levels.
Since the end of March, however, around 350,000 people who would normally be referred to hospital within two weeks with suspected cancer symptoms were not, according to Cancer Research UK.
The charity estimates that around three million people in the UK have missed out on routine cancer screening since March, after programmes for identifying breast, bowel and cervical cancers were mostly paused.
'Get message out there'
Dr Neil Smith, GP for Lancashire and South Cumbria Cancer Alliance, said he was worried about not diagnosing patients soon enough with cancer, because they were reluctant to come forward to tell him about cancer symptoms, and anxious about going to hospital for tests.
He said lung cancer screening was "very effective" and the earlier people were diagnosed, the better their chances of survival.
But he said people could be coughing, mistaking that for Covid-19 and then staying at home. He added that fewer men were coming forward with prostate cancer symptoms.
"If you've got any symptoms, talk to your GP about it," said Dr Smith. "It may appear that doors are closed, but there is a telephone-first system."
A survey of GPs suggests waiting times for blood tests, chest X-rays and scans have still not improved since the end of March.
Dr Jeanette Dickson, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, said radiotherapy treatment for cancer kept going during the pandemic, but people weren't coming "through the pathway".
She said patients remained "very anxious" about coming to hospital for treatment.
"We need to get the message out there - we are trying to make the NHS safe.
"We need them to come and be diagnosed - that's the only way we can help them."
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Attempts to close the pay gap between men and women appears to be "grinding to a halt", the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said.
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Its wide-ranging 700-page report said women on average earned 16% less than men, widening to 27% for women aged 40.
It also found schoolgirls of all ethnic backgrounds outperformed boys, with Chinese girls the top group at 16.
Commission chairman Trevor Phillips said today's Britain was more tolerant but inequality threatened to divide it.
The study entitled How fair is Britain? draws on a range of data and surveys and is the first in a series of reports to be produced for Parliament every three years.
It describes today's Britain as more tolerant of diversity and much less tolerant of discrimination against women, different races and sexual orientation than in past years.
It said there was less opposition today to working for an ethnic minority boss or to inter-ethnic marriages, while stereotypical views of women and men's roles in the family and society had moved on.
However, the report highlighted concern that racial and religious prejudice were increasing.
It said the British public were broadly positive about the economic contribution of immigrants.
While three-quarters said they were concerned about the scale of immigration at a national level, about the same proportion felt immigration was not a problem for their own communities.
The report also warned that the ageing population was creating new kinds of "chronic disadvantage", as many middle-aged couples struggle to look after two generations - their parents and teenage children. A quarter of women in their 50s are carers.
When it came to pay, the report said the gap between men and women was lowest for those under the age of 30, rising more than five-fold by the time workers reached 40, with a "pernicious earnings penalty" affecting some ethnic minority and disabled people.
Women with no qualifications faced a 58% loss in earnings over their lifetime if they had children, said the commission.
Disabled men earned 11% less than other male workers, while the gap was 22% for women.
Black graduates faced a pay penalty of up to 24%, the study suggested.
Total household wealth of the top 10% in society was almost 100 times higher than for the poorest 10%, while one in five people lived in a household with less than 60% of average income.
The report also suggested men and women from the highest social class could expect to live for up to seven years longer than those from lower socio-economic groups. Black Caribbean and Pakistani babies were twice as likely to die in the first year of life as Bangladeshi and white babies.
The report also said conviction rates for rape were "stubbornly low", that obesity was on the rise, and that two-thirds of gay, lesbian and transsexual secondary school students said they had been bullied.
Mr Phillips said: "This review holds up the mirror to fairness in Britain. It is the most complete picture of its kind ever compiled.
"It shows that we are a people who have moved light years in our attitudes to all kinds of human difference, and in our desire to be a truly fair society, but that we are still a country where our achievements haven't yet caught up with our aspirations."
He said that 21st Century Britain faced "the danger of a society divided by the barriers of inequality and injustice".
"For some, the gateways to opportunity appear permanently closed, no matter how hard they try; whilst others seem to have been issued with an 'access all areas' pass at birth," he added.
He warned that recession, demographic change and new technology "all threaten to deepen the fault lines between insiders and outsiders".
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David and Louise Turpin stand accused of holding their 13 children in shackles at their California home.
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By Vicky BakerBBC News
The allegations of torture seem impossible to comprehend next to the family photos circulated in the press that show the smiling group on days out at places like Disneyland.
We asked experts in child abuse, psychiatry and psychology how parents are able to turn on their offspring.
How unusual is it to lock up your own children?
The Turpins' case is extraordinary for numerous reasons - particularly as the allegations are against two parents who had multiple children together.
Prof Browne, director of the Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology at the University of Nottingham, says it is more common to see cases where there is one child and the parent or parents cannot cope, so the situation spirals out of control.
The 'happy family' charged with torture
Dr Bernard Gallagher, a child protection expert at the University of Huddersfield, says: "I see a lot of cases of neglect, where children are not washed or fed properly, but you don't often get cases of children being tortured, where the abuse seems calculated."
Can parents operate as an abusive team?
"When you get two people working together, they support each other and their behaviour becomes normal to them," says Coral Dando, a psychology professor at London's University of Westminster. "They behave in a way they would never behave on their own."
Though, one partner can also be controlled and led on by the other, she adds. "We tend to think of this as women being coerced into action by a man, as it is more common, but that is not always true."
How can abuse escalate?
When announcing the charges against the Turpins, local district attorney Mike Hestrin said the mistreatment appeared to intensify over time. "What started out as neglect became severe, pervasive, prolonged child abuse," he said.
Louise Turpin's sister, Elizabeth Jane Flores, told Good Morning America she stayed with the family 20 years ago and saw no specific signs of abuse, although she found their parenting style was strict.
Prof Browne says a situation can suddenly get worse because the perpetrators want to conceal a family secret, perhaps relating to the abuse.
"At some point, it becomes out of control, physically and socially, and they [the parents] have to control freedom of movement so the information can't be shared," he says.
Dr Eileen Vizard, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, says: "I can't comment specifically on current or past cases, but based on published research evidence and my clinical experience, cases of extreme abuse have often involved children who are hidden away in 'plain sight'."
"They may live with their families but they have no access to outsiders, such as professionals or playmates," she explains. "This means that abusing parents or carers never learn that there can be consequences from their cruel behaviours to children and children, in turn, never experience ordinary, non-abusing adults."
This, in turn, can create a relationship that has some elements of Stockholm syndrome, where abducted individuals identify with the abductor to ensure their own survival. "Some victims may identify themselves closely with the abusing parents about whom they may feel, paradoxically, very protective," says Dr Vizard.
How can abusive parents reconcile two sides of their lives?
Professor Browne says double lives "can be indicative of a personality order, where, say, a family man is sweet-as-can-be at home but a tyrant behind closed doors."
Dr Vizard says: "There are common mental mechanisms, such as 'splitting' and 'projection', which we all use to ignore aspects of our own bad behaviour or to attribute our bad behaviour to others as being their fault. Child victims may, in turn, feel that it is 'all their fault'."
Sometimes people can also use a warped version of religion to justify their actions, says Dr Gallagher, as they can convince themselves that a child is evil.
How can such levels of abuse be unknown?
Prof Dando, a former police officer who has also worked on modern slavery cases in her academic life, says that even when the victims have some contact with the outside world, fear can prevent them making a bid for freedom.
"For example, modern slavery victims go to work every day. They interact with the general public and they don't tell anyone, they even give their money to their abusers. That is the how they are being controlled - by threats and manipulation," she explains.
In the Turpin case, the children appear not to have had access to help. They did not attend school and instead Mr Turpin registered a private school in their home.
Dr Danya Glaser, a London-based child and adult psychiatrist, said home-schooling can allow children to go completely off the social radar. "There is nothing inherently wrong with home-schooling, but when there are no inspections, you can essentially end up with hidden children," she says.
One of the Turpin's neighbours told NBC News that they would see the children through the upper windows, late at night, marching in single file for hours.
Dr Glaser says: "If you know there are children living next door to you and you never see them or their behaviour is very odd, that should ring some bells." She says people should not be afraid to raise their worries, via the police, the local authorities, or a child abuse charity.
"It does not have to be an allegation, just a registered concern. That is one thing everyone can learn from this."
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South Korea has switched on a road which can recharge electric vehicles as they drive over it.
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By Leo KelionTechnology reporter
The project's developer says the 12km (7.5 miles) route is the first of its kind in the world.
It means vehicles fitted with compatible equipment do not need to stop to recharge and can also be fitted with smaller than normal batteries.
Two public buses are already using the technology and there are plans to add 10 more by 2015.
"It's quite remarkable that we succeeded with the OLEV [online electric vehicle] project so that buses are offering public transportation services to passengers," said Dong-Ho Cho, who led the team behind the scheme at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
"This is certainly a turning point for OLEV to become more commercialised and widely accepted for mass transportation."
However, another transportation expert warned that the costs involved in installing the equipment meant it was less practical than other schemes which involved vehicles wirelessly charging at specific locations or using overhead cables.
"There is clearly a lot of potential for this technology for public transport applications, but for private electric vehicles the cost of fitting all roads with such systems may be prohibitive," said Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis from the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University.
Smaller batteries
The Korean project runs from the train station in the town of Gumi, in the south of the country, to the In-dong district.
A device fitted to the bottom of the buses receives power from the road using a technology called Shaped Magnetic Field In Resonance.
Electric cables installed under the road are used to generate electromagnetic fields which are picked up by a coil inside the device and converted into electricity. The receiving equipment can be up to 17cm (6.7in) above the road's surface.
The researchers say they can transfer 20 kHz and 100 kW (136 horsepower) electricity at up to an 85% maximum power transmission efficiency rate.
They say that the power strips involved only need to be placed under 5% to 15% of the road, meaning that only certain sections need to be dug up and replaced.
They add that because vehicles do not need to stock up on energy before making their journey, the batteries involved can be three times smaller than would otherwise be needed. This reduces the weight of the vehicles helping reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted when generating the power required.
'Showcase technology'
Although the OLEV project is the first working scheme to power vehicles on the move, there are other inductive charging projects elsewhere.
Torino, Italy and Utrecht, the Netherlands have also fitted wireless charging equipment to some of their bus stops to allow the vehicles to top up power while drivers take short breaks.
Engineering firms Arup and Mitsui have set up a joint venture to roll out a similar scheme in Milton Keynes this autumn.
Utah State University is also testing a prototype campus bus which it says can achieve greater than 90% power transmission efficiency with a distance of 6in (15cm) between the pick-up coil and road surface at certain stops.
There are also moves to transfer the concept to cars. In London, computer chip maker Qualcomm is testing a wireless charging tech it calls Halo which it has fitted to Citroen and Rolls Royce vehicles, but again the idea is only to install power transmission pads at certain spots.
One expert said it was likely to be a long time before South Korea's more ambitious design became commonplace.
"I think we are decades away from even thinking about a nationwide network of electrified roads," said Ashvin Chotai, managing director of the Intelligence Automotive Asia consultancy.
"For now, it appears to be more of a showcase technology than something which has the potential to be commercialised."
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Sometimes you need to look at the horizon to understand what is going on at your feet.
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Kamal AhmedEconomics editor@bbckamalon Twitter
The Brexit debate can often appear a little parochial - a "looking at your feet" discussion about the UK economy, which seems to take little notice of the wider global economic context in which Britain sits.
But, looking at the horizon, a different picture can emerge.
And it is one where many more are now arguing that a better performing China, stronger economic data from the European continent and financial markets that have maintained relative resilience could wash away some of the ill-effects of the uncertainty coursing though the British economy.
A rising global tide lifts all boats.
Even if one might have a bit of hole in it.
To be clear, the World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund said that Brexit had thrown "a spanner in the works".
Without it, such had been the "promising signs" for the first half of 2016, that the organisation was ready to upgrade its global growth projections.
'Benign' view
The "spanner" has tempered that optimism, with the IMF now arguing that a slowdown in growth across the advanced economies is likely.
The organisation says it is taking a "benign" view of the Brexit effect on the UK economy based on an assumption that negotiations with the rest of the European Union are cordial and domestic political stability is maintained.
Which is certainly a change of tone from an organisation whose head, Christine Lagarde, said, pre-referendum, that the impact on the UK economy of a Brexit vote went from "pretty bad to very, very bad" and that there could be a recession.
Yes, the IMF has downgraded growth markedly for the UK, particularly next year when its -0.9% revision is only trumped by Nigeria (-2.4%) - a country struggling with the effects of the collapse in commodity prices.
The IMF does not predict a recession - in fact its forecast for 1.3% growth in 2017 is more optimistic than many.
Uncertainty stalks Britain
The organisation does not believe that fears over an economic downturn have passed.
But, now the vote has been taken, now the Bank of England has made it clear it stands ready to loosen monetary policy further to support growth, now the government has signalled it could be willing to borrow more at ultra-low interest rates to invest, the hit to confidence (that essential economic driver) may not be as severe as some believed.
"It is important to underscore the real effects of Brexit will play out gradually over time," Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF's chief economist, said, pointing out that data about the UK economy post June 23 is still "very limited".
Yes, uncertainty stalks Britain.
But on the horizon, a more robust global economy could help medicate away any economic pain.
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A strike that will disrupt the journeys of millions of people who live and work in the capital could alter more than their daily routine.
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Nick RobinsonPolitical editor
Senior Conservatives are now considering a series of changes to strike laws to include in their election manifesto.
London Mayor Boris Johnson has long argued for a minimum threshold so that a strike which lacked the support of half a union's members would not be legal in vital public services.
I'm told that Downing Street prefers other options - such as minimum service agreements, used in France and other European countries - to limit the number of days of strikes possible.
They are also examining tightening the rules governing strike ballots to give unions less flexibility on the timing of strike action and to widen the justification for a strike after a ballot is held.
This dispute is over the closure of all London Underground ticket offices and the loss of hundreds of jobs, in what Transport for London says is an attempt to modernise the system and save money.
The RMT union and others point out than when Mr Johnson first ran for mayor he promised to fight the closure of ticket offices.
The Liberal Democrats resisted moves within government to change the law. One source said that, while this week's tube strike was unnecessary, that did not mean there was a need for "half-baked legislation".
Labour has called on all parties to get around the negotiation table. Talks between Transport for London and the RMT have been taking place but RMT leader Bob Crow is eager to force Mr Johnson to join them - something he is refusing to do unless the strikes are called off.
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The Malaysian owners of Cardiff City Football Club want to change the team's shirts from blue to red in a bid to make the club more marketable in Asia.
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By Andy RobertsBBC News
But will a change of colour bring a change of fortune?
In footballing terms red-shirted teams such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool may have had the edge down the years over their blue-shirted rivals like Manchester City, Chelsea and Everton.
But it may be more significant to look east, to the growing markets of Asia where football clubs are seeking to build their brands and sell merchandise.
In Chinese culture - a strong force in Malaysian life - red is traditionally seen as a lucky colour and a symbol of integrity.
Being a naturally superstitious breed, football fans might see the appeal of a colour believed to exorcise ghosts and drive away misfortune, maybe even that perennial playoff jinx.
Adverts for a leading High Street bank with its roots in China have highlighted the fact that Chinese people mark the New Year by giving red envelopes containing money to bring good fortune.
Blue, meanwhile, is the colour of funerals and death.
But will the carrot of £100m of new investment be fortune enough to convince Cardiff City fans to accept red shirts?
If the change in colour does go ahead, a Feng Shui expert may need to be employed at the Cardiff City Stadium to ensure the positive power of red is not undermined by hanging anything of that colour there if the front door faces a north easterly direction.
The colour red also has positive connotations in western culture - we celebrate the arrival of a red letter day, and we roll out the red carpet for special events and important people.
And while it is often cited as the most popular colour of car, a poll of motorists by an insurance company in 2007 confusingly found that red was perceived as being both the safest and the most dangerous colour choice.
Red being the colour of fire and rage has occasionally inspired sports coaches to paint their home dressing room red to fire up their team for the battle ahead, while pale blue pastels may be thought to have a sedative effect on visiting teams.
Combining a red shirt with a dragon badge may be doubly lucky in Asian eyes, the creature being seen in Chinese culture as a symbol of good fortune and intense power.
Dragons aren't without precedent as they have long been a feature of the city of Cardiff's coat of arms which appeared on the shirts of the 1927 FA Cup winning team and subsequent years until the Bluebird logo emerged in the 1950s.
However, the rebranding of Cardiff City's kit to reflect the traditions of Wales may be seen by diehard Cardiffians as another example of their city's distinct culture being subsumed by national emblems - a tendency noted by former First Minister Rhodri Morgan in his 1994 pamphlet celebrating
Cardiff: Half and Half a Capital.
Bluebirds fans who are real sticklers for tradition and refuse to wear red could hark further back into the club's history and don Cardiff City's original chocolate and amber shirt... although it could be a bit too close to the colours of Newport County for comfort.
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The Canadian government is treating the disappearance of a woman from Quebec and her Italian friend in Burkina Faso as a kidnapping, media reports say.
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Edith Blais, 34, and Luca Tacchetto, 30, were last heard from on 15 December in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso.
The pair were travelling in Western Africa and were making their way to Togo for a humanitarian project.
Canada has travel advisories for Burkina Faso, due to terrorism and kidnapping.
"We're really worried because… the communications stopped abruptly and every kind of activity, every trace just completely vanished," Ms Blais' sister, Melanie Blais, told CTV News.
"They weren't worried about anything. They were having a really happy trip. She has been dreaming about travelling to Africa for all of her life."
A Facebook group set up by friends and family of Ms Blais says the couple were heading to Ouagadougou to sell their car, but never made it to the Togo border crossing or applied for visas.
The Canadian government has a travel advisory warning against all travel in Burkina Faso along the Togo border because of threats of "banditry and terrorism".
Radio-Canada reported that the Canadian government is treating their disappearance as a kidnapping, although the kidnapping has not been confirmed.
Global Affairs Canada told the CBC it is treating Blais's case as "extremely high priority."
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Revellers at Stonehenge will face a ban on alcohol at this year's solstice celebrations.
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English Heritage said it had seen more "drunken and disrespectful behaviour" as crowds had increased each year.
It hopes the alcohol ban will help "better look after" both those attending the solstice and the ancient monument.
A £15 charge per vehicle is also being introduced to encourage more people to car share or travel by bus.
Senior druid, King Arthur Pendragon, previously said any charge would be a "Pay to Pray policy" and he would fight the "total ban on alcohol".
'Annual vandalism'
English Heritage said it was "mindful" of the practices of some druid and pagan groups who use alcohol as part of their ceremonial practice, and will consult on how moderate use of ritual alcohol might be incorporated into the new policy.
It also pledged to keep access to the monument free during the celebrations, despite growing attendances.
Kate Davies, Stonehenge's general manager, said: "Something has to be done or we risk losing what makes solstice at Stonehenge so special."
In 2000, approximately 10,000 people attended the solstice, while in 2014, the figure was close to 40,000.
That same year, the stones were vandalised during both the summer and winter solstice celebrations.
Despite it being illegal to damage the monument, last year the Heritage Journal wanted revellers banned from getting close to the stones in a bid to prevent the "annual vandalism".
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The company known as China's Facebook has not disappointed. Shares in Renren jumped 50% when they started trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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By Juliana LiuBusiness reporter, BBC News, Singapore
Investors had expected the hype surrounding the Chinese social networking site to make it another blockbuster listing, like that of Youku, China's YouTube.
Shares in Youku had tripled, in the best opening for a US listing in five years.
However, some analysts have questioned what might happen after the "dizzying heights" of the early days of trading.
"The post-IPO hangover will see volatility as investors wonder if this is really the 'next Baidu' or just one of a handful of struggling Facebook copycats," says Michael Clendenin, managing director of RedTech Advisors.
Renren, like Youku, is not making money at the time of listing.
But its business model holds the promise of massive future profits in the world's biggest internet market because of the number of Renren users.
Renren is banking on that premise, as well as on its singular status as the only pure-play social networking site open to mainstream investors.
China's Facebook
It is known as China's Facebook because of obvious similarities between the two.
Facebook itself is banned from China for censorship reasons.
Renren was started in 2005 by three classmates who initially targeted university students, before it was purchased by the current chief executive, Joseph Chen.
The site eventually widened its base to appeal to all internet users in China - hence its name, which means "everyone".
Like Facebook, Renren makes money from internet advertising, but almost half of its income comes from online games.
The company shares were priced at $14 each. That represents a 30% increase from just a week ago, when it became clear that demand exceeded supply.
The social networking site was able to increase its listing price range, even after it told investors that it had only 31 million active users every month, much less than the 117 million that it had stated initially.
First to list
Mark Natkin, founder of Marbridge Consulting, says few investors would tolerate this kind of behaviour from a non-Chinese internet company.
"There aren't a lot of companies that could get away with that," he says.
But he adds: "The appetite for Renren shares is there because this is the first major social networking site from anywhere to list."
The embarrassing revision of user numbers is only one reason why analysts in Beijing, where Renren is based, are sceptical about Renren's long-term future.
Sabrina Dong, an analyst at Analysys International, believes the pace of new users joining Renren is slowing every month.
"Of course its overall user base continues to grow, but if you look carefully you can see that the pace of acquisition is clearly falling," she says.
According to figures supplied by Renren, the company added an average of 29% more active users in 2009 compared with the year before.
But that figure fell to 18% in 2010, and remained at 19% in the first three months of this year because of greater competition from other social network applications.
Rise of microblogs
Renren may be known to the West as China's Facebook, but in fact it is just one of many social networking sites on the Chinese mainland.
There is Kaixin001, due to list later in 2011, as well as internet heavyweights such as like Tencent, Sina and potentially even search engine Baidu.
And Mr Clendenin believes the explosive rise of microblogs modelled on Twitter are stealing users from the likes of Renren.
"China's microblogs combine the functions of Twitter and Facebook, offering a one-stop shopping opportunity," he says.
He says it took Renren five years to attract 120 million users, whereas Sina's microblog, called Weibo, did the same in less than two years.
Weibo amassed about 37 million users in the first three months of the year alone.
But US investors are not considering Renren's rivals when they pile into the listing.
They are thinking about much bigger numbers.
China has an internet population of almost half a billion, and half of them use social media.
With global favourite Facebook out of the running, investors believe homegrown talent will find fertile ground.
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A 69-year-old man has died following a crash in Argyll.
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The BMW he was driving was in collision with two other vehicles - a Vauxhall Astra and a Vivaro van - near Lochgair at about 14:30 on Wednesday.
No-one else was seriously injured but the A83 road was closed for over nine hours to allow for investigation work to be carried out.
Police officers dealing with the crash have appealed for any witnesses to contact them.
Insp Archie McGuire said: "This was a serious crash and our thoughts and sympathies remain with the family and friends of the man who lost his life, along with all those involved.
"Our inquiries into the cause of the collision are continuing and I would ask anyone who saw what happened, who has not yet spoken to officers, to come forward.
"I would also ask motorists using the A83 yesterday and who may have been recording via dash-cam devices to check their systems and provide any relevant footage to us as soon as possible."
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The activist hedge fund investor Starboard Value has called for the replacement of the entire Yahoo board.
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In a letter to shareholders it said it was "extremely disappointed with Yahoo's dismal financial performance, poor management execution, egregious compensation and hiring practices".
Recent results showed Yahoo made a loss of $4.3bn (£3bn) loss for the year.
Yahoo said in a statement it would "review Starboard's proposed director nominees and respond in due course."
Starboard's letter included accusations that the company generally lacked accountability and oversight by the board.
The former internet trailblazer has been struggling to deal with falling share prices and investor dissent.
Yahoo said it would cut 15% of its workforce as it pursued what it called an "aggressive strategic plan" to return to profitability.
The job cuts will reduce the number of its employees to about 9,000 by the end of 2016.
Starboard Value also said the company, which has been led by chief executive Marissa Mayer for the past four years, was undervalued by investors.
Starboard said there were opportunities to unlock "significant value" for investors but it said the board were not the people to do it: "We believe the board clearly lacks the leadership, objectivity, and perspective needed to make decisions that are in the best interests of shareholders."
In December, the company announced it was reversing a plan to sell its stake in the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba, and would instead look to spin off its core internet business.
Ms Mayer was forced to change course on the Alibaba sale following pressure from several activist investors.
It is also closing offices in Dubai, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Milan.
Starboard owns 1.7% of Yahoo.
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Chinese exports saw the steepest fall for two years in December, according to the latest trade figures.
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Exports from China fell 4.4% last month compared with the year before, while imports fell 7.6%.
The figures indicate a further weakening in the strength of the world's second biggest economy and sent Asian stock markets lower on Monday.
Other data released on Monday showed the country's trade surplus with the US reached a record high in 2018.
The gap between what it exports to and imports from the US rose by 17.2% to $323.32bn (£252bn) last year.
China's success in selling its products overseas has particularly irked US President Donald Trump, who has initiated a trade war with China to try to hold back exports.
This prompted companies to push through exports to try to beat the introduction of tariffs, so called "front loading".
After almost a year of tariffs being introduced on a growing list of Chinese products - with China reacting in kind - the two leading nations began talks last week designed to end the conflict.
'Eye-catching' deterioration
Falling demand in China itself is having a marked effect on certain companies.
Earlier this month, Apple warned that its revenues would be lower than expected, partly due to the slowdown in China. Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover has also been hit by weaker sales in China.
December's trade figures suggest the economy may be slowing faster than feared.
Freya Beamish, Asia economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: "The extent of deterioration in trade in both exports and imports was eye-catching; both dropped further... in December, after a substantial drop in November.
"Some pull-back was warranted in recent months, after front-loading of purchases ahead of the series of tariffs hikes. But trade now is now well below the previous trends."
The Chinese authorities have recently been taking action to try to boost growth, releasing money to be spent on infrastructure and cutting taxes.
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The education secretary has called on a senior college official to resign after a private conversation between them was secretly recorded.
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Michael Russell said he no longer had confidence in Kirk Ramsay, the chairman of Stow College in Glasgow.
Mr Ramsay is said to have distributed a recording of discussions over controversial college sector reforms.
He was quoted by a newspaper as saying Mr Russell's comments about him were "disturbing".
Mr Russell has issued a letter to others who were in attendance at the meeting expressing his concerns and informing them that their comments were recorded.
A Scottish government spokeswoman said: "The education secretary's letter makes the position plain.
"Making and distributing a secret and surreptitious recording of a confidential meeting is inconsistent with the behaviour expected of the chair of a publicly-funded college.
"As a result, Mr Russell no longer has confidence in Mr Ramsay. At their meeting on Wednesday he suggested Mr Ramsay should consider his position in the light of that fact but made it clear he had no power to force his resignation."
'Influence and power'
Scotland's colleges face "considerable financial pressures" in the years ahead, according to a report released last month by the public spending watchdog.
Audit Scotland said the planned structural reforms of the college sector may create cost pressures.
There are now 70,000 fewer people going to college than two years ago, although the government has insisted that it has "maintained college numbers at the full time equivalent of 116,000" through focusing on full-time students and cutting thousands of part-time places.
The Herald newspaper said Mr Ramsay had told them he had distributed the recording to a small number of people directly involved in the implementation of college reforms.
He told the newspaper: "I am extremely disappointed that Mr Russell has used his position to seek to exert such control, influence and power both privately, but also so publicly.
"I find his comments about me disturbing given the foregoing. It is regrettable that he has chosen to seek my removal in such a fashion, particularly given the difficult period of change we are all experiencing."
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Worried customers of the defunct pawnbroker Albemarle & Bond (A&B) have been told they can collect their pawned goods from branches of rival chain H&T.
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Many have faced difficulties redeeming items used as collateral for loans after 116 A&B pawn shops shut abruptly earlier this month.
Some even feared goods such as jewellery and gold would never be returned.
H&T said its "immediate focus" was to support A&B's 30,000 customers.
The firm has agreed to buy £8m worth of loans linked to customers' belongings - known as "pledge books" - from Speedloan Finance, which had traded under the name Albemarle & Bond.
The deal will mean customers of A&B can redeem or extend their existing loans at H&T's 248 UK pawn shops.
Customers were taken by surprise when A&B abruptly ceased trading earlier in September, blaming "significant" financial losses.
Pawned items at its shops were swiftly moved to a central storage facility in Oxford, giving customers little chance to redeem them. And there was outcry when many were unable to get through to the company's helpline to find out about the whereabouts of their goods.
Many customers also did not feel comfortable about transferring large sums of cash to A&B over the phone, given its financial position, in order to retrieve their goods.
Nor did they want to have precious items returned to them by post.
Part-time cleaner Jackie Alderson pledged 10 rings and two necklaces - some of which were inherited from her late parents - as collateral for a loan from A&B .
"I tried calling them hundreds and hundreds of times but no answer," she told the BBC. "It left me in tears."
When she finally got through she was given the option of redeeming the items, but she did not like the idea of having to transfer £1,200 to A&B over the phone. "I wanted to pick it up in person," she said.
The delay in redeeming her goods has already cost her £80 in additional interest on her loan, Ms Alderson said.
'We deeply apologise'
H&T said customers would now be able to call its helpline and get their goods sent to branches of H&T near where they live.
In the rare instances where there is no H&T shop nearby, the firm said it would send goods directly to customers.
Kohei Ogawa, the head of Daikokuya Holdings, owner of A&B, said: "We deeply apologise to customers for any uncertainty and upset caused by our decision to close in the UK.
"Once we decided to do this, we had to move quickly, in order to secure more than 35,000 customer pledges in our central secure facility.
"This agreement with H&T is a good outcome for customers and will enable them to redeem or extend their pledges with minimal disruption."
The deal with H&T does not include A&B's stores, which all remain shut. About 400 staff have also been made redundant, although H&T said it had hired a number of them to work in its own shops.
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As the Syrian protests spread to cities across the country, President Bashar al-Assad has been holding out both carrots and sticks - but neither seems to be working.
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By Lina SinjabBBC News, Damascus
"Syria is not Assad's. Syria is a country of free people," says Muntaha al-Atrash, the daughter of Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, who led the revolution against the French in the 1930s.
"They killed to be in power and have stayed there by power and repression only," she says, referring to the iron-fisted rule of the Baath Party, which came to power in a 1963 coup.
"It is time for them to leave," Ms Atrash told the BBC.
Syria has been rocked by weeks of protests calling for freedom, democracy and an end to corruption. Hundreds have been arrested, and more than 200 killed by security forces since the start of the month-long uprising.
President Assad - who inherited power from his father in 2000 - has been offering some reforms in recent weeks, even promising to lift the decades-old emergency law, the most pressing demand of the protesters.
"There has been a change in style, which may prove effective if the authorities are quick to deliver the goods," says Peter Harling, project director of the Middle East programme at the International Crisis Group.
"But there also is the issue of radicalisation, wherever protests have led to violence."
The main centres of unrest are in the southern province of Deraa, the major towns of Latakia, Baniyas and Homs, as well as the suburbs of Damascus, and the majority Kurdish regions in the north.
"In those areas, [protesters] will settle only for full accountability. They want a state that protects its citizens, not one that they accuse of acting with impunity," says Mr Harling.
Palpable fear
Despite the promises of reform, the security forces continue to favour heavy-handed tactics. People are looking over their shoulders once again.
"It is just like the 80s," says one opposition figure in Damascus who asked not to be named.
"Anything we say is a reason for arrest. People are taken in the streets, from cafes, from their homes."
But this has not stopped pro-democracy supporters from marching.
On Monday, hundreds staged a sit-in in the main square of the western city of Homs, bringing mattresses, food and water to the site for an Egypt-style standoff. They stayed until dawn on Tuesday, when security forces fired tear gas and live rounds, witnesses said.
"The genie is out of the bottle and it doesn't look like it's going back," the opposition figure said.
Facing the biggest internal threat since he took power 11 years ago, Mr Assad ordered the release of many who were arrested in recent weeks.
Those freed tell of brutality and torture at the hands of security forces.
"They have turned every detainee into a time bomb against them," said one activist who left prison with bruises and broken ribs.
According to Amnesty International, at least 200 people have been killed in clashes with security forces.
The government blames the violence on "armed gangs", but the families of those killed said it was the security forces who fired.
In some cases, like Baniyas, some army and security personnel also died in the clashes.
Residents say it was a cruel ploy by the army, which shot at some of its own soldiers to bolster its claims about armed gangs and infiltrators.
Cyber-activists
The Assad administration has also sought to sow sectarian fears.
It claims to have documents indicating that a Saudi prince has pumped millions of dollars into the country to de-stabilise Syria.
The papers make reference to the bombing of churches, the regime has claimed, which has alarmed Syrian Christians in the run-up to Easter celebrations.
On Monday, the government issued a statement blaming "armed Salafist groups" for the unrest, referring to an ultra-conservative form of Islam that is popular in Saudi Arabia.
The government is also using state media institutions to spread its message, while clamping down on independent news agencies.
It has criticised Arab broadcasters for using what it calls made-up videos from YouTube and accused international journalists of playing a provocative role.
Videos of the protests have been posted on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter by Syrian citizens inspired by the cyber-activists in the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
Most of the activists use pseudonyms for safety reasons, including 28-year-old Malath Oumran, whose real identity has been discovered by the authorities.
"Although most of us use pseudonyms, we have nothing to do with international forces," says Mr Oumran, who is originally from Suweida, but currently living in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
"We are all young Syrians who care about the country and we want the world to know the truth."
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Japan's Okinoshima island, an ancient religious site where women are banned, has been declared a World Heritage site by the UN's cultural body Unesco.
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Okinoshima is home to the Okitsu shrine, built in the 17th century to pray for the safety of sailors.
Before setting foot on the island, men must take off their clothes and undergo a cleansing ritual.
When they leave they are not allowed to take away any souvenirs, or disclose details of their visit.
Long before the shrine was built, Okinoshima was used for rituals involving prayers for oceangoing ships and trade ties with Korean and Chinese people, the Japan Times reports.
Thousands of artefacts brought as gifts from overseas have been found on the island, including gold rings from the Korean Peninsula, it says.
Other additions to the Unesco list:
The island now welcomes visitors on a single day every year, 27 May, and ancient rules are still observed.
The number of visitors is restricted to 200. They must perform ablution rites in the sea, and - most controversially - be male.
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The Church of England's general synod has backed a report proposing a historic agreement with the Church of Scotland.
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The Columba Declaration paves the way for future joint working between the two churches.
It came after the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland addressed the synod.
It is believed to be the first time a serving moderator has been invited to speak at the Church's governing body.
The Right Rev Dr Angus Morrison told the gathering in London: "The strengthening of the bonds which already exist between us can only serve the 'advance of the Gospel' which is our united desire and aim."
The declaration sets out how members and clergy will be allowed to worship and exercise ministry in each other's churches.
Common opportunities
It will also offer opportunities for congregational partnership, formal and informal, where there are churches close to each other.
Members voted 243 votes to 50 to approve the document at the synod.
The Bishop of Chester, the Right Reverend Dr Peter Foster, who co-chaired a study group which prepared the agreement, said: "As our country has become more secular, we find ourselves drawn together as we face common problems, and opportunities.
"For all the ways in which our recognition and calling as national churches has had very different histories and legal structures, we have found that we have more in common, in our common tasks in mission, than we might have been led to suppose."
The report will now go to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May for approval.
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A cat and mouse game is taking place every day on the internet. It is the online battle to deny space to extremist content.
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By Gordon CoreraSecurity correspondent, BBC News
On one side of the frontline are a team based in New Scotland Yard - the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.
On the other are jihadists based in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere posting propaganda videos online - the most grisly of which show the beheading of hostages.
"We take stuff down, they put more stuff up," explains one of the Scotland Yard team who spoke to the BBC but asked to remain anonymous for his own security.
He is passionate about the importance of his job even though it has its challenges.
"It can be quite draining having to continuously see graphic and horrible images," he says.
"In our department we're huge fans of social media generally, but what we don't want to see is young people having access to material which could be extremely disturbing such as a beheading video and be for example, swapping it on online platforms between themselves at school."
Each member of the team is assigned a different jihadist media team so they can learn their behaviour - where and how they post their videos - and move as fast as possible to get them taken down.
"There are certain groups we chase from platform to platform and we know we've been effective because they will leave a message on a social media platform saying that they are moving somewhere else. We'll then target them at that one."
Three decades ago, Margaret Thatcher talked of the need to "find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity".
It was a time when those associated with violence in Northern Ireland were seeking airtime for their political statements and tensions were high between government and broadcasters.
Even in the nineties, Osama bin Laden still needed to invite US TV crews to come to him in Afghanistan in order to deliver his threats.
But a decade ago the dynamics between terrorism and the media began to change. Iraq was where that first became visible.
Increasingly, jihadists belonging to Al Qaeda in Iraq were filming their own attacks and then uploading them to the internet.
At first getting the material online was hard - it took technically-adept helpers to distribute it online. But in 2005, a new world of social media was just emerging.
Youtube, Twitter and other platforms would make direct communication easier.
The jihad was going online and this is where media wars would be played out in future.
This has meant that the tension between state and media over giving terrorists the oxygen of publicity has shifted from (domestic) TV Broadcasters to (largely American) social media companies.
Witness new GCHQ Director Robert Hannigan's broadside against them on his first day in the job.
He wrote in the Financial Times that they were "in denial" about the way they had "become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals".
Those technology companies say they are already working effectively to deal with extremist content on their sites.
One of the avenues for partnership is the team - known as the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit - based at Scotland Yard.
The police officers get confirmation that the material they spot breaches UK law by encouraging and glorifying terrorism and then contact the social media companies.
Google says that the UK team has a 96% accuracy rate - meaning that it only disagrees with one in 25 requests to take down content.
This compares to an overall average of 31% for reported content.
Google says it receives around a 1,000 reports a day of content that people believe should not be on the site which are reviewed individually to see if the material is in breach of the community guidelines.
Google says items which are found to be in breach are typically taken down in under an hour.
Could they do more? Google argues that it cannot review content before it is posted.
"We have 300 hours of video uploaded every minute so the idea of proactive review would be like asking the phone companies to review every phone call before it was made," argues Victoria Grand, a director of public policy for Google, which also owns Youtube.
The company also argues that automated detection is simply not possible.
It says that even its algorithms to try to spot pornography cannot be automated since searching for pictures with large amounts of flesh tones might also pick up innocent shots of babies.
There are also issues in recognising the difference between a news report which may carry a still or segment from a hostage video and the raw video itself. Google also says it does not want to remove everything which simply refers to a group like Islamic State since that would also remove journalistic material put out to counter its message.
Other companies have tightened up their procedures.
The website Ask.fm allows people to ask and answer questions anonymously. It is used heavily by young people.
That has included people offering information about jihad in Iraq and Syria.
Under new ownership, Ask.fm says it has learnt from the past by introducing things like reporting buttons.
Annie Mullins, who has taken over as lead safety advisor for the site, also points to the fact that people frequently use the site to have innocuous chats about other subjects before then moving to a different and more private messenger platform to actually try to recruit them.
So should the company be relying on requests from the police or the public rather than proactively looking for extremist content?
"If you look at Ask.fm, it has 28 million questions a day," says Ms Mullins, "so I think the impracticality is obvious and I think that's the same for other platforms," she argues.
"The police have to do their job and we do our job," she goes on, "which is to try and manage our community to the best standards that we've got using the best tools we've got."
While the UK has focused on removing content - trying to deny the oxygen to extremists - the US government has placed more emphasis on contesting that space.
Ambassador Alberto Fernandez is the US State Department's Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism. The Department runs campaigns on Twitter and social media forums to challenge extremists directly, with titles such as "Think Again, Turn Away".
These have been criticised in some quarters but he believes that engaging the jihadists' audience rather than ignoring them means they are exposed to alternative views.
But, like the Metropolitan Police team, his staff are few in number, with only around 20 engaging on a daily basis with jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
"We see ourselves as a rag-tag guerrilla organisation waging a hit and run campaign against the adversary," Mr Fernandez told the BBC. "We're definitely the David against the ISIS Goliath, which is perhaps somewhat ironic."
That means in this game of cat and mouse, the jihadists in Syria and Iraq engaged in putting out their message may well outnumber those in London and Washington who are trying either to take it down or to counter it.
And as the tide of jihadist propaganda continues to swell, the tensions over how to deal with it between government and media are likely to grow too.
Listen to Gordon Corera's documentary, Terror and the Oxygen of Publicity, at 8pm, Tuesday 23rd December, on BBC Radio 4.
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Football star Lionel Messi's 21-month prison sentence for tax fraud has been changed to a fine by the Spanish courts.
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The Barcelona star must pay €252,000 ($288,000, £223,000), equating to €400 for each day of the sentence, the court said in a statement.
Messi, along with his father Jorge, was found guilty of defrauding Spain of €4.1m between 2007 and 2009.
His father's 15-month sentence was replaced with a €180,000 fine.
The pair had been found guilty of using tax havens in Belize and Uruguay to conceal earnings from image rights.
As well as the suspended jail terms, the Argentina international was fined about €2m and his father €1.5m. They made a voluntary €5m "corrective payment", equal to the alleged unpaid tax plus interest, in August 2013.
Messi's appeal against the sentence was rejected by Spain's Supreme Court last month, but his father's jail time was reduced because he had paid some of the taxes.
The footballer was never expected to serve time in jail as under the Spanish system, prison terms of under two years can be served under probation.
Lionel Messi's highs and lows
...and major disappointments:
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An NHS worker has died from coronavirus after treating patients with only gloves for protection, leaving his family feeling "let down".
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By Rianna CroxfordBBC News
Thomas Harvey collapsed on Sunday after falling ill having helped a patient who later tested positive for Covid-19.
The 57-year-old healthcare assistant's family claim with the "right" personal protective equipment (PPE) at Goodmayes Hospital, London, he may not have died.
The hospital said there were "no symptomatic patients on the ward".
Mr Harvey was signed off sick from the hospital in Ilford on 11 March after developing symptoms including a cough, shortness of breath and body aches.
He had only been given gloves at work and did not have the correct PPE, according to his family and a former colleague.
The colleague said Mr Harvey had contracted the virus at work after treating a patient who later tested positive.
He was told by paramedics to self-isolate, but he was not officially tested for coronavirus.
His 19-year-old daughter, Tamira, told the BBC they called 999 again a few days later but were referred back to NHS 111.
"They told us he wasn't an emergency, but he was breathing badly."
Mr Harvey collapsed in his bathroom on Sunday and died despite efforts by paramedics to resuscitate him.
Tamira said: "It's so sad. I feel like he was let down in so many ways.
"It's an absolute tragedy and he didn't deserve to lose his life in the way he did.
"If he had just had the right equipment we wouldn't be in this predicament and it wouldn't have escalated in the way it did."
'Right treatment'
She said he had been let down by the government.
"They underestimated the severity of it. Something big was coming and they didn't do their best."
Thomas Junior, 24, said his father's death could have been "prevented so easily if he had been diagnosed quicker and was given the right equipment and given the right treatment in hospital".
The hospital confirmed Mr Harvey died after contracting Covid-19.
The father-of-seven who had three grandchildren, was described by his family as a "caring, supportive and selfless man who always put others before himself".
His family said Mr Harvey did not have any underlying health conditions and had "rarely taken a sick day".
In a statement, Goodmayes Hospital said: "At the time Thomas went off sick and self-isolated there were no symptomatic patients on the ward.
"We are following national PPE guidance."
The Department of Health said: "We are working around the clock to give the NHS and the wider social care sector the equipment and support they need."
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Bank of England governor Mark Carney has called for longer prison sentences for bankers who break the law, in a speech attacking on ethics in the City.
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By Kamal AhmedBusiness editor
In his Mansion House speech Mr Carney said individuals acted with a "culture of impunity".
But, he warned: "The age of irresponsibility is over."
Meanwhile, Chancellor George Osborne said he plans to bind future governments to maintaining a budget surplus when the economy is growing.
Mr Osborne gave the Mansion House audience more details of the proposal he first announced in January.
Mr Carney said markets responsible for trillions of pounds of global trade were stained by excess, collusion and abuse and that "ethical drift" had taken hold.
"Criminal sanctions should be updated, with market abuse rules similarly extended and maximum prison terms lengthened," he added.
'Markets can go wrong'
He said the Bank of England under his predecessor, Lord King, failed in the run-up to the financial crisis because of its arcane and ambiguous rules and its inability to identify risks in the banking system. It failed to effectively control markets where abuse was rife.
"Though markets can be powerful drivers of prosperity, markets can go wrong," according to Mr Carney.
"Left unattended, they are prone to instability, excess and abuse.
"Personal accountability was lacking, with a culture of impunity developing.
"All these factors contributed to an ethical drift. Unethical behaviour went unchecked, proliferated and eventually became the norm," he said.
Rogue trader crackdown
Mr Osborne, who was also speaking at the Mansion House, said: "The public rightly asks: 'Why is it after so many scandals so few individuals have faced punishment in the courts?'
"Individuals who fraudulently manipulate markets and commit financial crime should be treated like the criminals they are - and they will be."
The chancellor and the governor were speaking as the Fair and Effective Markets Review was published - a report by the Bank, the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority on strengthening controls in financial markets.
The report recommends a crackdown on rogue traders and a new Market Standards Board that would bring the "age of irresponsibility" to an end.
The review says that criminal sanctions for market abuse should be extended to traders in markets such as foreign exchange, one of the markets hit hardest by manipulation by banks.
'Updated sanctions'
It also says that maximum sentences for wrongdoing should be lengthened from seven years to 10.
The report argues that the Senior Managers' Regime of controls already agreed for banks should be extended to more people in financial services, including traders and brokers.
If agreed, that would mean that tens of thousands of people in financial services would be covered by the regulations which can punish wrongdoing with fines.
The Bank said it would immediately agree to be covered by the regime, including the Governor himself.
'Arcane governance'
Mr Carney has reserved some of his harshest criticisms for the Bank of England itself and how it operated ahead of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008.
"In the run up to the crisis, the Bank's contribution to the effectiveness of markets fell short," the Governor said.
"Once under pressure, the Bank could not support the banking system.
"The Bank neither identified the scale of risks in the system nor spotted gaps in the regulatory architecture.
"[And] the Bank's arcane governance blurred the Bank's accountability and, by extension, weakened the social licence of markets."
The Bank of England's governance had now been reformed and more would be done to strengthen the way it operated, according to Mr Carney.
'Theft is theft'
City of London Lord Mayor Alan Yarrow, who spoke first at the event, said "uphold[ing] professional standards" should be the guide for financial workers.
"I feel the pendulum has swung too far towards prescription. Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's right. It is the spirit of what we believe is right which should be the principle of our regulation.
"It's like a supermarket with no security cameras - if someone takes something without paying, it is theft. Theft is theft. There is no escape. People should uphold professional standards irrespective of whether the regulators are there or not."
In a separate statement responding to the Fair and Effective Markets Review, he said: "By toughening up the rules for manipulating the fixed income, commodities and currency markets we are turning the corner and making further abuse less likely.
"The combination of tougher rules with the expectation of better conduct and more professionalism is what the markets need and people want to see."
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Hackers have livestreamed police raids on innocent households after hijacking their victims' smart home devices and making a hoax call to the authorities, the FBI has warned.
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It said offenders had even spoken to responding officers via the hacked kit.
It marks the latest escalation of a crime known as "swatting", in which offenders fool armed police or other emergency responders to go to a target's residence.
The FBI said there were "deadly" risks.
A fake call about a hostage situation led to police shooting a man in Kansas three years ago, and there have been non-fatal injuries in other cases.
Shouted insults
The FBI said it believed the latest twist on the "prank" was able to be carried out because the victims had reused passwords from other services when setting up their smart devices.
Lists of hacked credentials are frequently bought and sold via illegal markets.
And offenders often run the details stolen from one service through others to find where passwords have been reused.
There have also been reports of security flaws in some products, including smart doorbells, which have allowed hackers to steal network passwords and gain access to other smart devices sharing the same wi-fi.
The apps and websites used to set up such products often store the user's name and address in their account settings in order to offer location-specific services.
"The [perpetrators] call emergency services to report a crime," the alert issued by the FBI states.
"The offender watches the livestream footage and engages with the responding police through the camera and speakers. In some cases, the offender also livestreams the incident on shared online community platforms."
The notice does not refer to any specific incident, but there have been related press reports in recent weeks.
In November, NBC News highlighted a case in which police went to a Florida home after receiving a fake 911 call from a man saying he had killed his wife and was hoarding explosives.
When they left the building after discovering it to be a hoax, officers reported hearing someone insult them via the property's internet-connected Ring doorbell.
In another incident the same month in Virginia, police reported hearing the hacker shout "help me" after arriving at the home of a person they had told might be about to kill himself.
When they questioned the attacker via the device, he claimed to have compromised four different cameras at the location and to be charging others $5 to watch online.
"After this we'll log out, tell him to change his Yahoo password, his Ring password, and stop using the same passwords for the same [stuff]," the offender was quoted as saying by local news station WHAS11.
A further event was also reported in Georgia in which the attacker shouted racial abuse at his victims after the police stood down, and claimed to have carried out more than a dozen such hacks that day.
Ring has denied its own systems have been compromised. It uses two-step verification, which means device owners can only access their accounts from a new computer if they enter a code emailed or sent to them via text message.
However, if either of those forms of communication are also compromised the user remains vulnerable.
As a consequence, the FBI has advised smart device owners to ensure they provide a different complex passcode to each online service they use.
"Users should also update their passwords on a regular basis," it adds - although the UK's National Cyber Security Centre has suggested this additional step itself poses a risk if it encourages people to opt for weaker codes.
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Signalling problems led to frustration for commuters on Monday morning as trains across southern England were delayed.
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A fault at Fratton in Portsmouth disrupted services to Wales and to Victoria and Waterloo in London.
Travellers on First Great Western, South West Trains and Southern endured delays of up to an hour.
A signal failure at Maidenhead in Berkshire also caused problems for Paddington services.
Earlier in the rush-hour, delays at London's Moorgate station had been caused by signal failure at Drayton Park, north London, and another fault at South Woodham Ferrers, in Essex, caused hold-ups for services arriving and departing from London Liverpool Street.
Network Rail said engineers were also at Clapton where a signalling problem caused trains from Liverpool Street to Chingford to be suspended.
Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT union, said: "This has been another miserable morning for commuters with services into London wrecked yet again."
A message on the National Rail Enquiries website said tickets would be valid on "reasonable" alternative routes.
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Paralympic and world champion boccia player David Smith has claimed the Welsh NHS lost his bespoke £7,500 wheelchair while it was in for repair.
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The 31-year-old, who won gold at the 2008 and 2016 Paralympic Games, has accused the ALAS Posture and Mobility centre in Pontypridd of "incompetence".
Mr Smith, who has cerebral palsy, said he may now have to wait eight weeks for an assessment for a new wheelchair.
The local health board has apologised and will undertake an investigation.
Mr Smith is among the most successful British boccia players in history, with four Paralympic medals in total and four world championship titles - and is now training for the delayed Tokyo Paralympics in 2021.
"I'm currently using the wheelchair I compete in but that's not ideal as it's meant for sitting in for for two hours not all day, every day," he said.
"My other chair was specially designed so it clips into my car so I can drive. It means I now can't drive and I've lost my independence. It's also not as comfortable when you're sat down, relaxing during an evening."
He dropped his privately-owned "top-of-the-range" Sunrise Jive chair at the centre on Treforest Industrial Estate on 21 September - before calling two days later for update on the repairs.
"They could not give me a straight answer," said Mr Smith.
"Two hours later, I received a phone call from the manager saying they had no idea where my chair was and that they had not been able to work on it."
Mr Smith added he was in "shock" but said it was "not necessarily a surprise" as they had previously lost his cushion.
Mr Smith said he had to wait a week before the centre told him they will pay to replace his chair but may have to wait up eight weeks for an assessment which is affecting his Paralympics training as well as his day to day life.
"If this were a car, the issue would be resolved at once, yet a wheelchair - which is essentially my legs - is somehow inferior."
The local health board has said they are "very sorry" and will investigate how they came to lose it.
"Our priority was to order a replacement chair," said a spokesperson from the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.
"It is appreciated that the loss of the wheelchair is having a significant impact upon Mr Smith's daily life and his ability to undertake his training."
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Since the coronavirus lockdown began nearly a quarter of the UK's workforce has been furloughed.
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By Alex ReganBBC News
More than six million people are having 80% of their wages, up to £2,500 a month, paid by the government while they are temporarily on leave from their jobs.
But hundreds of thousands of workers have fallen through the cracks because they started new jobs around the time the impact of the pandemic would have started to become clear.
Despite assurances of a "more generous" scheme for new employees, many have been forced to take unpaid leave, seek new work, or explore claiming benefits.
'Government promises are a smokescreen'
When the government's job retention scheme was announced, it was only open to people who had been registered on their employer's PAYE system by 28 February.
But last month the government announced it was extending the scheme to people employed by 19 March.
Campaigner Natalie Greenway, from Hinckley in Leicestershire, said: "At the beginning I looked at it and thought, 'oh great, this means I get to be furloughed now', because I started my new job on 16 March."
But to qualify, an employee will need to have had an RTI (Real-Time Information) submission, or payslip, sent to HMRC.
Many new starters got paid at the end of March and therefore would not qualify for the new extended scheme.
"It's a smokescreen, and a bit of a PR stunt. It isn't a change," Ms Greenway said.
Chief executive of UK Hospitality, Kate Nicholls, said the RTI stipulation could affect between 350,000 and 500,000 people in her industry alone.
She told a Treasury Committee hearing that people who thought they were eligible for the furlough scheme, because they were on their employer's payroll by 28 February, were being excluded because they were not paid by 19 March.
A Treasury spokesperson said employees "always had to be included on an RTI submission" and this was not a new requirement.
'I've barely got any money left for food'
Jasmin Mayes, from Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, started her new role on the first day of the lockdown.
She had moved from a job at a window supplies company to work at an aeronautics firm.
But the single parent is now waiting for universal credit after her new company made her redundant and her old employer refused to take her back.
She said: "I've done a benefits calculation and if it's correct it will just cover my bills without any food or petrol.
"My child maintenance has now stopped from her dad as he lost his job, so this month we will receive £83.85 in child benefit and that's everything."
Her daughter Elodie is not eligible for free school meal vouchers until the universal credit claim comes through in June.
"What's left now has to last until I'm able to find work again," she added.
'I'm looking for delivery or fruit picking jobs'
Bryn Robinson, from Essex, moved jobs at the beginning of March.
Despite starting his job before 19 March, the father-of-two is another who is not eligible for the government's furlough scheme.
"It's fairly common practise that you get paid at the end of the month," he said.
"I don't think many people will be saved by this, there'll be a lucky few who'll get something. But the monthly paid among us, no."
As a result, he has decided to take a mortgage holiday and has been looking for work as a delivery driver, or fruit picker.
"I'm not willing to work in a supermarket because I don't want to bring a virus home to my family, I'm not going to risk their health," he said.
"It's an employer's market, and it's tough if you're applying for a role outside of your experience."
'I was one of the lucky ones'
Neil Walker from Hinckley, Leicestershire, began a new job in renewable heating technology on 2 March.
Initially that start date meant he was not eligible for the furlough scheme, but after the date changed he was hopeful he would benefit.
As he is paid in the middle of the month his employer made an RTI submission by 19 March.
"I was one of the lucky ones," the 49-year-old said.
"If I wasn't furloughed I'd be facing the financial abyss, my partner only works part-time and she's been furloughed.
"I think it's so unjust, nobody knew this was going to happen, no-one knew the implications of moving jobs."
'I can't furlough 85% of my workforce'
Richard Potter was excited at the beginning of the year as he had set up a new curtain and blinds company with his business partners in Merseyside.
But when non-essential retailers shut their doors, orders began drying up and the start-up had to look at furloughing staff.
"But of the 46 people we employ we can only furlough seven," Mr Potter said.
"We've been unable to pay anybody since the end of March.
"It's terrible from an employer's point of view.
"Do I make them redundant? Do I put them on zero-hours contracts? Being a new business we don't have the reserves to pay them."
Mr Potter said the government's scheme was penalising "people who were moving jobs for the right reasons".
The Treasury said firms could re-employ people who had left so they could be "put back on payroll and furloughed".
But Mr Potter said he had "a lot of sympathy" for ex-employers who would not take people on again because of the future cost implications of making people redundant.
His business's sewing staff have been returning to work to make surgical gowns for the NHS, the sales of which will cover some of his staff's wages.
A Treasury spokesperson said the government's job retention scheme had helped "to pay the wages of more than six million furloughed jobs".
They added by extending the scheme "we have provided support for thousands of extra people, whilst keeping the significant fraud risks under control".
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Two US B-52 bomber planes have flown near artificial islands built by China in disputed areas of the South China Sea, the Pentagon has said.
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Their mission continued despite being warned by Chinese ground controllers.
The incident comes ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama to a summit in Manila next week, which China's President Xi Jinping will also attend.
China is locked in maritime territorial disputes with several neighbours in the South China Sea.
It claims a large swathe of the resource-rich area and has been aggressively reclaiming land and building facilities on reefs, which the US and others oppose.
The US has said it plans to demonstrate its freedom of navigation principle in the sea, which challenges what it deems to be "excessive claims" to the world's oceans and airspace.
'Received warnings'
The US patrol, which took place overnight on Sunday near the Spratly Islands, was a "a routine mission in the SCS (South China Sea)", said Pentagon spokesman Bill Urban, taking off from Guam and returning there.
The B-52s did not breach the area of sea claimed by China around the islands, the Pentagon said.
Mr Urban told reporters that the planes received two warnings "despite never venturing within 15 nautical miles of any feature".
"Both aircraft continued their mission without incident, and at all times operated fully in accordance with international law," he said.
Last month, the US sailed warship USS Lassen into the 12-nautical mile zone China claims around Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago, angering Beijing.
China's foreign ministry condemned it as "illegal" and provocative.
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The BBC is very experienced at broadcasting news to as many people as possible.
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Sarah SmithScotland editor
Traditionally it's always been much less good at keeping secrets.
Journalists have a natural inclination toward gossip.
So, it was highly unusual that BBC bosses had managed to keep the launch of a whole new BBC Scotland channel entirely secret until it was announced to staff on Wednesday morning.
What now for a Scottish Six?
Staff, viewers and politicians were expecting to be told that plans for a "Scottish Six" had been shelved.
No one knew that there would be an hour-long news programme with Scottish, UK and world news at 9pm instead.
Already there has been a widespread welcome for the idea of a new channel, new programmes and most importantly new money to make those programmes.
The announcement of new nightly news programme at 9pm does mean that the idea of a "Scottish Six" is now dead.
So people who had been campaigning for that will be frustrated.
Already the First Minster Nicola Sturgeon has said there is lots to welcome in this announcement but that it doesn't deliver everything she wanted.
Saying it's disappointing that there is no Scottish Six - but "progress and hopefully sign of new thinking".
Another SNP politician told me that the decision not to put a Scottish news hour on BBC One looks "entirely political".
Saying that viewers accustomed to getting their news at tea time may not immediately develop the habit of watching a digital channel at 9pm.
But for those who wanted a news programme reflecting the world from a Scottish perspective, produced and presented from Scotland - the BBC is now delivering what they asked for.
The Scottish Six is dead. Long live the Scottish Nine.
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Care inspectors and ministers have been criticised for failing to explain in detail how they will improve life for elderly people in care homes.
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Older People's Commissioner Sarah Rochira said she was "disappointed" with their responses to a 2014 review.
It found elderly residents "quickly become institutionalised" in homes seen as places of "irreversible decline".
The Welsh government said it was taking "strong action" with new laws to improve the regulation of care homes.
Ms Rochira's report in November followed unannounced visits by experts to 100 care homes, and more than 2,000 questionnaires completed by care home residents and their families.
All public bodies involved in the sector were asked to submit action plans setting out how they would ensure improvements in residents' lives.
While health boards and local councils were praised for their "strong commitments" to improve quality of life, Ms Rochira was critical of the Welsh government and the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW).
"In my review I made very clear the impact of not taking action and the price that is paid by older people when public bodies fail to uphold people's rights and protect them," she said.
"I am therefore extremely disappointed that the responses from the Welsh government and CSSIW in many instances failed to provide adequate detail or acknowledge the change that needs to take place to assure me that action will be taken that will deliver real and positive improvements for older people living in care homes."
The Welsh government said it continued to take "strong action" in relation to the care of older people, citing "significant new legislation" on regulation of the care sector.
"We have also set up a Care Homes Steering Group to provide leadership and ensure action is taken to improve care and support for older people," a spokesperson added.
Imelda Richardson, chief inspector for Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales, said it completed thousands of inspections a year to ensure people receiving care in Wales were safe and last year it saw a 64% reduction in the number of services considered to be of concern.
"We want to re-assure the public that we are an effective inspectorate and regulator - we always put the quality of the care that people receive at the heart of our work," she said.
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A blue plaque which has mistakenly credited the wrong person with founding the charity Save the Children for 23 years is being replaced.
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The sign honouring Eglantyne Mary Jebb was unveiled in Marlborough by Princess Anne in 1996 but charity founder Eglantyne Jebb never had a middle name.
The error was spotted by a researcher from Marlborough News, who has organised a replacement.
"We haven't told Princess Anne about the mistake," writer Sue Round said.
Eglantyne Jebb, born in Ellesmere, Shropshire, taught at St Peter's School in the Wiltshire town between 1899 and 1900, before setting up Save the Children in 1919
It is thought the woman celebrated by the existing plaque was a much younger relative who, confusingly, also became a teacher later in her life.
Ms Round chanced upon the error while writing a feature to mark the charity's centenary.
"I spoke to the area rep, who said to me 'You know the plaque is wrong, don't you?'," she said.
"I phoned the mayor who asked for more evidence, so I dug out census documents and even a photo of her grave, which proved she didn't have a middle name.
"Save the Children had told the council about it before but nobody was able to prove it, so the change wasn't made," she said.
Marlborough News has agreed to pay for half the cost of the replacement plaque, which will be unveiled later.
"I suppose the internet wasn't available back then, and whoever did the research didn't look into it enough," added Ms Round.
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Crossrail was driven over its budget and beyond its schedule after bosses clung to an unrealistic opening date, the public spending watchdog said.
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Decisions were driven by a desire to meet the December 2018 deadline for the new east-west railway in London, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
Crossrail cut risk management teams ahead of an expected completion, but is now rehiring them, the NAO said.
The company said it had taken the views of the watchdog "very seriously".
The overall budget for Crossrail has risen from £14.8bn in 2010 to £17.6bn.
In response to delays in the schedule, testing of train and signalling systems were carried out in early 2018 even though "few meaningful results could be acquired at this point" because of a software problem, the report stated.
This took time away from those involved in construction work.
Changes to designs and contractors' delivery schedules cost around £2.5bn between 2013 and 2018, according to the NAO's analysis.
£14.8bnexpected cost in 2010
£17.6bnexpected cost as of 2019
December 2018Original scheduled launch
March 2021Current expected completion, without Bond Street
15,000people have worked on Crossrail
60 milesDistance of the line from Reading to Heathrow
Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, said: "Throughout delivery, and even as pressures mounted, Crossrail Ltd clung to the unrealistic view that it could complete the programme to the original timetable, which has had damaging consequences.
"While we cannot make an overall assessment of value for money until Crossrail is complete, there have been a number of choices made in the course of this project that have clearly damaged public value."
Crossrail Ltd, the company building the railway, said services between Paddington and Abbey Wood will begin by March 2021, although Bond Street station will not be ready.
Full services across the line from Reading and Heathrow in the west to Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the east will begin "as soon as possible", it added.
Crossrail Ltd chief executive Mark Wild said the company have taken the views of the NAO "very seriously".
He added that a "new leadership team and enhanced governance structure has been put in place to strengthen the Crossrail programme and put the project back on track".
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A man who planned to kill 100 people in a London terror attack said he tried to convince the authorities he was not dangerous in order to get a passport.
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Lewis Ludlow, 27, from Rochester in Kent, was stopped in February from travelling to the Philippines and his passport was later cancelled.
He told the Old Bailey he was then told to set off a truck bomb by an Islamic State (IS) commander.
Ludlow pleaded guilty in August to preparing acts of terrorism.
Ludlow told the court he had attended a moderate religious event to keep officers from the de-radicalisation Prevent scheme "happy."
He also said he attended a meditation session with non-extremists on the same day he carried out attack reconnaissance on Oxford Street because "I wanted to get a new passport to leave the country."
The court heard Ludlow had also messaged an Islamic State supporter on the same day in March to say "I must prove to the police I'm not dangerous".
Mark Heywood for the prosecution asked Ludlow if he had been seeking to "give a false impression" about his "state of mind".
The former Royal Mail worker said he wanted to "show I wasn't dangerous" but that "I have multiple intentions and also change my mind very easily over certain things".
Ludlow added that had been trying to "keep Prevent happy", and "I wanted to get a passport to leave."
The court previously heard Ludlow said a Filipino extremist, known as Abu Yaqeen, told him to scout potential targets, take pictures, and prepare an oath of allegiance to IS.
Ludlow is continuing to give evidence ahead of sentencing, in spite of entering a guilty plea, as there are still disputed issues between the prosecution and defence.
He will be sentenced on 6 March.
Related Internet Links
HM Courts & Tribunals Service
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A young driver who notched up £26,000 in toll bridge fines has had the penalties waived.
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Jack Murray, 20, from Runcorn, said he suffered sleepless nights because of the fines imposed by the operators of the Mersey Gateway bridge in Cheshire.
Mr Murray did not include his council tax bill when he applied to pay discounted tolls online, meaning his application was never completed.
Bridge operator Merseyflow is waiving the fines as a "goodwill gesture".
Mr Murray, who works as an HGV driver in Kirkby and uses the bridge for his commute, thought he had secured the discount for residents of Halton Council when he emailed his driving licence, car log book and pay slips to the council.
However it was never registered because he did not include a copy of his council tax bill.
As a result, he started accruing fines and bills for unpaid tolls which eventually totalled £26,000.
'Bailiffs at my door'
When he received the first fine he thought it was a mistake but when he challenged the penalties he was told he was past the deadline for appeals.
"I was very frustrated when I found out," he said.
"I lost sleep and I lost my appetite - I was thinking about it all the time. It was very stressful.
"I'm relieved that I won't have the bailiffs at my door but I just hope nobody else has to go through what happened to me."
Neil Conway, chief executive of Merseyflow, said it had apologised to Mr Murray for "any distress that has been caused."
He added: "As Mr Murray has now provided all the relevant documents, we can confirm that he does qualify for the local user discount scheme and as a goodwill gesture we are able to waive all the penalty charge notices and any related court fees."
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Learner drivers will have to be able to follow directions from a sat nav and drive into a parking space to pass their test.
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Ministers have announced four changes to the current test which will come into force on 4 December.
Drivers will also be expected to answer vehicle safety questions while on the move and complete 20 minutes of independent driving rather than 10.
The RAC Foundation said it would be a "far more realistic assessment".
Changing behaviours
The Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), which is in charge of running driving tests and approving instructors, said it wanted the test to have "more real life scenarios" such as driving into and reversing out of a parking space.
It said it wants the test to reflect the changing behaviours of drivers.
Manoeuvres such as "reverse around a corner" will be replaced in the new test and examiners will test a driver's ability to use a sat nav as an alternative to following road signs.
About half of all car drivers now have a sat nav and using them teaches drivers to better manage distractions, the DVSA said.
The "show me" and "tell me" question at the beginning of the test will become a "show me" question while driving such as asking candidates to use the rear windscreen heater.
The DVSA said increasing the time candidates had to do independent driving would allow the examiner to better assess the driver's ability to drive safely on high risk roads.
Currently, learner drivers spend a large amount of test time on low risk roads such as housing estates.
Transport minister Andrew Jones said despite the UK having some of the safest roads in the world, the government was "always looking to make them safer".
Mr Jones said: "Ensuring the driving test is relevant in the 21st Century - for example, the introduction of sat navs, will go a long way towards doing this."
Evolving technology
The DVSA said a public consultation on the changes received almost 4,000 responses, with 71% agreeing with asking candidates to follow directions from a sat nav.
Some 88% agreed with increasing the length of the independent driving part of the test, it said, while others agreed with the changes to the reversing manoeuvres and "show me" questions.
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: "We are very supportive of the revisions DVSA is making to the practical driving test, which will mean candidates undergo a far more realistic assessment of their readiness to take to the road unsupervised.
"Much has changed since the first driving test was taken in 1935, and it must be right that the test evolves, just as the cars we drive are themselves changing to incorporate ever more driver assist technology such as inbuilt sat nav systems.
"Novice drivers need to demonstrate the right skills and driving style to cope with the new environment."
In December 2016, the Department for Transport announced plans to allow learner drivers on the motorway. Results from this consultation will be released later this year.
Disabled Motoring UK also supports the changes because many disabled drivers use sat navs regularly.
Have you had a driving test disaster? Let us know about your experiences. Please email [email protected] with your experiences.
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Tony Blair has warned that a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic would be a "disaster".
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The former UK PM said later he believed there was a "common desire" to make Northern Ireland a "special case" in Brexit negotiations.
An open border had done a "tremendous amount" for UK and Irish trade and must be safeguarded "as much as possible".
The British and Irish governments have both said they do not want a return to customs posts on the border.
When, as part of Brexit, the UK leaves the EU's customs union there will have to be some from of customs enforcement.
'Extremely anxious'
The EU's negotiating guidelines call for a "flexible and creative" approach to the customs issue but no solid plans have yet been advanced by either the EU or the UK.
The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier has told a joint session of the Irish houses of parliament in Dublin that the Irish border issue would be one of his three priorities in negotiations but emphasised that there would have to be some form of customs controls between NI and the Republic after Brexit.
Mr Blair, who was UK prime minister during the Northern Ireland peace process, was in Wicklow, Ireland to address a meeting of MEPs from the European People's Party - the largest group in the European Parliament.
Speaking to RTE Radio before the meeting, Mr Blair said: "It really would be a disaster to have a hard border."
But following the EPP meeting later he stressed that he believed there was a "common desire" to treat Northern Ireland as a "special case".
He said he was "extremely anxious" to ensure Brexit did not damage the Good Friday Agreement - of which he was one of the architects.
"At the moment we have a common travel area where people can travel freely between south and north ... on the island of Ireland. This is vital to maintain."
"I think whatever disagreements I have with the British government over Brexit more generally, I think there is a real consensus across the British political system that we must do everything we possibly can to keep the present situation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland ... as similar to what we have at the moment as we possibly can."
Mr Barnier, who has been meeting business people in the Irish border region on Friday, told reporters he wanted to find solutions "without rebuilding any kind of hard border" and to protect and preserve the Good Friday agreement. "But we have to find a solution which is compatible with the single market".
He said Brexit negotiations would be "very complex and difficult". "This negotiation will not be only financial, legal or technical. In my view it will first [be] human, social and economic," he said.
BBC Northern Ireland's economics and business editor John Campbell said the free movement of goods was likely to be a key area of negotiations - and agricultural food companies in particular were extremely concerned about the potential for tariffs which could wreck their business.
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For Ethiopia's Orthodox Christians, the ancient city of Aksum is a sacred place, home to the Biblical Queen of Sheba and Ark of the Covenant.
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By Hana ZeratsyonBBC Tigrinya, Aksum
The ark is believed to contain the 10 commandments handed down to Moses by God, and is said to be under the guard of monks in the city.
Some Muslim groups are campaigning to build a mosque in the city - a suggestion rejected by Christian leaders, saying they would rather die.
"Aksum is our Mecca," declares senior cleric Godefa Merha, who believes that just as churches are banned in Islam's holiest site, mosques cannot exist in Aksum.
"Aksum is a holy place. This city is a monastery," says Mr Godefa, the deputy head of Askum's Our Lady Mary of Zion Church.
This long-held position of Orthodox Christians is now at the centre of controversy as some Muslims are rallying under the banner "Justice for Aksum Muslims" to demand the right to build a mosque in the city, and to give their call to prayer - "Allah is the greatest" - on loudspeakers.
Many people see the controversy as unfortunate because the Kingdom of Aksum, one of the world's greatest ancient civilisations, was once famed for its religious tolerance.
According to followers of both religions, Muslims first arrived in the kingdom soon after the advent of Islam in around 600AD as migrants fleeing persecution at the hands of Mecca's then non-Muslim rulers.
The Christian king welcomed them with open arms, and gave Islam its first presence outside the Arabian Peninsula.
Today, Muslims make up about 10% of Aksum's population of around 73,000 inhabitants - with 85% of them being Orthodox Christians and the remaining 5% belonging to other Christian denominations.
'Muslims forced to pray outside'
Muslim resident Abdu Mohammed Ali, who is in his 40s, said his family has for generations rented Christian-owned homes to provide Muslims with places of worship.
"We have 13 temporary mosques. On Friday, if they [some Christians] hear us using loudspeakers, they say we are denigrating St Mary," he complains.
Aziz Mohammed, a traditional doctor who has lived in Aksum for 20 years, says some Muslims are forced to pray in the open because of the absence of mosques.
"Here, we, Muslim and Christian, live together. The Christians do not prohibit us from praying but for many years, many of us have been praying in the street. We need a mosque," he says.
The subject is clearly causing some tension between the communities. Mr Abdu was reluctant to talk to me, an Orthodox Christian, and only did so after much persuasion and checking my identity, while Mr Aziz, who was born to a Christian mother and Muslim father, refused to be drawn further on the subject, simply said: "Here you live fearing each other."
'We need to live in peace'
Similar differences surfaced in Aksum about 50 years ago when Emperor Haile Selassie was in power in Ethiopia.
The city's then-leader, a member of the royal family, struck a compromise which saw Muslims build a mosque some 15km (9.3 miles) away in the town of Wukiro-Maray.
During a visit to the town, which also has a majority Christian population, I met Keriya Mesud who was cooking for Muslim worshippers while they were praying.
Pointing out that five mosques now exist in Wukiro-Maray, Ms Keriya said: "Though we need a mosque in Aksum, we can't force them. What we need is to live in peace."
Kingdom of Aksum:
Mr Godefa says the two communities do live in peace, adding that the people of the two Abrahamic faiths have much in common.
His best friend is a Muslim, he says, and they come together for weddings, funerals and other events.
'Only Christian hymns'
He believes that Muslims from other parts of Ethiopia are behind the campaign to build a mosque.
But he vows that Orthodox Christians will never break the oath given to their fathers and grandfathers to preserve the "sanctity" of Aksum.
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"If anyone comes to build a mosque, we will die. It has never been allowed, and we will not allow it to happen in our age. For us it's death. We must live respecting each other the way we have been living for centuries."
In particular, Orthodox Christians believe only Christian hymns and blessings should be heard within the city, which they say was built about 7,500 years ago, because of the Ark of the Covenant.
Christian preacher Amsale Sibuh explains: "Religions that do not accept Christ's birth, baptism, crucifixion, death and his second coming cannot exist in a place where there is the Ark of the Covenant. If anybody does anything against this, we will pay with our life."
Officials in the city administration declined to comment, except to say that followers of the two faiths are living together peacefully.
Many are hoping that like Emperor Haile Selassie's government, the current one - led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whose father was Muslim and mother is Christian - will broker a deal to maintain Aksum's reputation as a haven of peace.
For their part, Muslims seem determined to press ahead with their demand.
A body made up of influential Muslim clerics in the area - the Regional Council of Muslims - said it intended to hold discussions with Christians in an attempt to persuade them to allow a mosque in Aksum.
"The Muslim and Christian communities must agree on this and we need to see the Christians also helping in building that mosque," says council official Mahammad Kahsay.
Around the BBC
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Aksum Unesco World Heritage Site
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An MP is calling for the cost of children's coffins to be covered by the Welsh Government as part of an existing scheme paying for burials.
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Swansea MP Carolyn Harris has been campaigning on the issue since she had to take out a loan to pay for her own son's funeral.
The Welsh Government scrapped burial and cremation costs in 2017.
But Ms Harris said they were so quick to agree, they had not thought about introducing payment for the coffin too.
Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to make an announcement on Monday outlining the UK government's plans, which are more comprehensive than those previously outlined in Wales and include payment for the coffin.
Ms Harris said: "I have now spoken to colleagues in the Welsh Government and asked that they revisit the scheme to see if there's a potential there to include the cost of the coffin."
She added she was "immensely grateful" to the Welsh Government, for reacting so quickly - within six months - to her appeal to help with the cost of child funerals.
Ms Harris said she was "delighted" that after three years the UK government was also taking action.
The Welsh Government praised Ms Harris for her "courageous campaign" and said it would be reviewing the impact of its current scheme later this year.
An official said Welsh ministers would "explore what further support families may need at this extremely sad time".
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There was a grumble of resentment coming from the firm's Menlo Park headquarters as it celebrated its 15th birthday.
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Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter
"We've given you the gift of a connected world - why are you so mean to us?" seemed to be the lament.
In a birthday blog, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg outlined how networks like his were bringing communities together while undermining traditional hierarchies in the media and elsewhere.
Then he said this:
"There is a tendency of some people to lament this change, to overly emphasise the negative, and in some cases to go so far as saying the shift to empowering people, in the ways the internet and these networks do, is mostly harmful to society and democracy."
In a recent speech outlining the progress Facebook had made in dealing with the various harms caused by social media, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg also worried about media negativity.
She pointed out that a London journalist had written about how new technology meant we were sharing too much information about ourselves, while an editorial had said this meant the immediate end of all privacy.
She then revealed that these laments were written 100 years ago when the technology involved was the telephone.
The clear implication of what Facebook's two leaders are saying is that the criticism of their company has gone too far, and is perhaps motivated by a mixture of envy and ignorance from old media types who've always distrusted anything new.
Looking at British newspaper coverage of Facebook over recent years, you can see their point.
It has been relentlessly negative, with the social media giant blamed for everything from the undermining of elections to encouraging bullying, causing divorces and discouraging people from adopting pets from Battersea Dogs' Home.
There is also a somewhat naive belief that if Facebook's technology is so brilliant at targeting adverts then it should be simple enough to remove harmful material.
It's rather akin to the 1960s lament that "they can put a man on the moon but they can't solve the common cold", or the more recent "they promised us flying cars and instead we got 140 characters".
Social media firms are using artificial intelligence and other technology to identify and remove rule-breaking content. But that's no magic bullet - the wider challenge is determining exactly what we as a society consider harmful and want to see expunged from the internet.
These are complex issues but often both journalists and politicians paint them in very simplistic terms.
But while Facebook's leaders may feel bruised by the constant bad headlines, frankly they need to get over themselves.
Their company has done plenty of objectively bad things over recent years - laughing off the idea that it could swing an election, allowing users' data to be scraped by a political consultancy, doing little to prevent the platform from being used to promote genocidal violence in Myanmar.
Other tech giants, from IBM to Microsoft to Apple, have been cast as media bogeymen over the years but arguably none has had the power that Facebook wields to harm society and democracy.
Running Facebook may now be as testing a task as governing a medium-sized country.
But for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg there is one comfort - the pay is a lot better.
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Taiwan manufacturer Foxconn has signalled it could mount a $27bn (£21.7bn) bid for Toshiba's chip business, according to reports.
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Toshiba has put part or all of its valuable memory chip unit up for sale to plug a gaping hole in its finances.
Foxconn's potential bid is much higher than analysts' $18bn valuation for the business, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported.
At least one other firm has also submitted a preliminary bid, they said.
Such a large offer from Foxconn would put pressure on Japan's government as Toshiba is seen as a key national asset.
Major losses
The Japanese firm needs to raise funds after its US nuclear unit, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy protection last month.
Toshiba has warned that its net loss for 2016 could exceed 1 trillion yen ($9bn; £7bn) - one of the biggest losses in Japanese corporate history.
Toshiba is the world's second-largest chip manufacturer, with its products used in data centres and consumer goods worldwide, including iPhones and iPads.
It would not be the first bid for a Japanese firm from Foxconn, which assembles most of Apple's iPhones.
Last year Foxconn struck a $3.5bn deal to take a majority stake in Sharp, the struggling Japanese electronics company.
South Korea's SK Hynix and US chipmaker Broadcom have also submitted preliminary bids for Toshiba's chip business, according to Bloomberg.
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Families in parts of the UK are paying hundreds of pounds more to cremate loved ones than others, figures show.
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Cremation costs at council-run sites range from £392 to £960 and have risen by nearly a fifth since 2015.
Experts said it was likely people in areas where charges were higher would have to pay, as grieving people tended not to shop around for a cheaper area.
Council fees are mostly reinvested in cemeteries and crematoria, according to the Local Government Association.
The BBC analysed figures for adult cremations, collected by charity The Cremation Society, and obtained the latest data for 183 council-run crematoria in the UK and Channel Islands for the past five years.
Costs had risen in two thirds of areas since 2018 and, adjusting for inflation, prices were up by 11% on average since 2015.
Between 2010 and 2015 cremation prices rose by a third across 170 local councils.
The figures showed the cremation fee plus a medical referee's fee and any environmental surcharge. This represented the minimum cost charged by local authorities for services from 15 to 45 minutes but did not include additional funeral expenses.
'It's robbery'
Karen Hitchman, 56, from Mossley in Greater Manchester, said when her parents died within six weeks of each other she had no savings to pay for their funerals.
"I actually felt suicidal, that's how depressed I got with it all and the more people I asked for help, the more I got turned away," she said.
Ms Hitchman eventually received help from the government and charities but said funeral costs in general were too high for those already struggling to make ends meet.
"Obviously when you're in a state of shock and you're dealing with a funeral, it's the last thing you think of," she said.
"Afterwards when you sit down and think about it, it [is] extortionate.
"It's robbery, you can't afford to live, you can't afford to die," she said.
The most expensive council-owned crematorium was in Milton Keynes, which currently charges £960 as a basic fee.
However, private sector cremations could cost more, according to the Cremation Society, with a top price of £1,070.
A spokesman for Milton Keynes Council said it set its prices to ensure the recovery of the costs in delivering the service.
"The charges cover the maintenance costs of the crematorium and 10 cemeteries across Milton Keynes," he said.
According to the council this ensured the cremators were maintained "at the standards required to achieve the most effective and efficient processes".
'Death rate will rise'
Barrow Borough Council said up to 2015 its fees were "lower than many other crematoria".
"With the reduction in government funding the borough council increased all fees in comparison with our neighbouring authorities," it said.
Glynn Humphries, from Wakefield Council, said it had set its fees to cover the costs of replacing its cremators in recent years.
"It is important that we are equipped to meet future demand, as the death rate is likely to rise," he added.
Belfast currently has the lowest cost for cremation at £364.
A spokeswoman for Belfast City Council said its last detailed review of cremation costs was undertaken "some years ago" but current prices were "subject to change".
Julie Dunk, chief executive of the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, said while a cremation "can seem quite expensive" when broken down, the costs made sense.
"There's quite a lot involved when it comes to cremation, not just the actual process itself but all the infrastructure around it," she said.
"So it may be that a crematorium has had to invest quite heavily in new equipment to meet environmental standards or to bring the chapels up to a decent level."
'Right thing'
She added many public crematoria were now "ageing buildings" that required constant maintenance from local authorities running them.
Commenting on the difference across the country in price, the Good Funeral Guide's Fran Hall said families in high cost areas would often just pay what was asked.
"It's very unlikely that people will ring three different crematoria to find the cheapest one to take grandma to when it's time for her funeral, that just doesn't happen," she said.
She said there was a "subliminal assumption" shopping around for the cheapest deal meant families were not "doing the right thing" for the person who died.
Councillor Simon Blackburn, from the Local Government Association, said council fees generally accounted for "less than a quarter" of the overall cost of a cremation.
"There is no restriction on how surplus revenue is used but it is mostly reinvested in cemetery and crematoria infrastructure, grounds maintenance, staff and energy costs to address demand and provide the services bereaved families want."
In March the Competition and Markets Authority said it would be launching an investigation into the funerals sector.
It said "problems" with the market had led to above inflation price rises "for well over a decade" in both the funeral and crematoria services.
"The scale of these price rises does not currently appear to be justified by cost increases or quality improvements," a spokesman said.
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BT has secured the rights to broadcast live Premier League games for the first time.
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By Ben MundyNewsbeat reporter
The telecoms company has the rights to 38 matches a season from the summer of 2013, for three years.
BSkyB will continue to show the most games, with 116 per season costing them £760m.
The deal is worth more than £3bn to the Premier League - an increase of 70% on the current package which shares rights between BSkyB and ESPN.
BT says it will launch a new football-focused channel to carry the games and will publish full details at a later date.
Newsbeat's been chatting to football fans about the deal which could change how you watch and pay for matches.
Elliott Welch, 20 - Arsenal supporter
Elliott says his mum pays for their Sky subscription and he enjoys watching Arsenal.
"I think the money involved is crazy and it seems the prices go up every year.
"They say it's only £2 a month, but that does make a difference and to pay like £40 a month is hard.
"The thing is, the public are paying, paying, paying and this is going to cost us football supporters more money.
"I hope this money goes into the clubs and we can get some better players in at Arsenal.
"But having said that, the money they get is ridiculous and the wages they get needs to be reworked."
Richard Pettiford, 30 - Arsenal supporter
Richard says the increase on the current deal will mean pubs and viewers will struggle to pay their subscriptions.
"I think people will watch fewer games across the season, you will only watch who you really want to watch.
"The players train all their lives and work until about 35 so they deserve the wages they get, but it could go too far.
"I think it's good for some of the lower league teams who should get a bit more money from this.
"End of the day money is money and they are always going to sell to the biggest buyer."
Ross Clarke, 32 - Coventry supporter
Ross says he stopped his subscription to Sky because of the cost.
"I think fewer people will pay to have the privilege and end up watching the big games at the pub.
"If Sky are paying more and BT are paying this amount, the man on the street is going to pay more money to watch the same games.
"I just hope some of the money the Premier League gets will get fed down into grass roots football to help our country's footballers grow.
"For the supporter on the street it's very frustrating that huge amounts of money will get fed back into the very top of the game."
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter
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Denmark says it plans to regulate popular influencers after an Instagram star posted a suicide note online.
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By Sophie WilliamsBBC News
The influencer, Fie Laursen, posted the note on Instagram, where she has more than 336,000 followers.
It remained online for two days before her family managed to take it down. The family confirmed in an Instagram post that she was recovering in hospital.
The minister of children and education said influencers must, as other media, have an "editorial responsibility".
'Same standards'
Ms Laursen's Instagram letter, which drew more than 30,000 likes and 8,000 comments, sparked a debate in Denmark on how to monitor online content from influencers.
Minister of Children and Education Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil told the BBC that the government wanted influencers to have an "editorial responsibility" in line with the standards of the "old press".
She said: "When you reach a certain number of people who are followers of your page then you will have the same responsibility as if you were an editorial person on a newspaper or on old media.
"So, for instance... the Danish ethical standards for the press is that you do not write about suicide or suicide attempts if it doesn't concern the general public. We want these same standards applied to social media."
If an influencer is found in breach of the rules, their post would be removed. Influencers with a certain number of followers will also be made to have a number of administrators.
Ms Rosenkrantz-Theil said: "In the case with the woman we are debating this on, her parents wanted to delete the posts and weren't able to because nobody else apart from their daughter had access to these accounts. We want you to have responsibility and have a board around you that can take down posts that are inappropriate.
"We have a society where the mass media of today has changed and the standard of mass media communication has to change and has to apply to the new mass media. It's different media but the same ethics."
'We need restrictions'
Sarah Louise Christiansen, a popular blogger in Denmark with more than 128,000 followers on Instagram, told the BBC that influencers should be looked at "in a new way."
She said: "The whole influencer and blogger thing is still quite new. It's still not accepted as real work and real business and I think because of this there is also a lack of attention in the area. There's a lack of responsibility both for the bloggers but also for all the followers.
"I have been doing this for 10 years and I wouldn't like to have restrictions on expressing myself but I want to have restrictions so that we can protect the influencers themselves because some of them are very, very young and sometimes they post things that are very bad for the viewers."
Ms Christiansen says that you cannot compare blogging to newspapers so you "have to make a whole new setup" and analyse the ways to protect both bloggers and followers.
She said that media regulations "don't work" for influencers and there need to be consequences for actions online.
"This calls for action. Maybe this can be the first step in realising that online behaviour should be recognised."
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Cyclists who kill or seriously hurt pedestrians could be prosecuted like dangerous drivers under new laws being considered by the government.
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Drivers convicted of death by dangerous driving face up to 14 years in jail.
But there is currently no law against causing death by dangerous cycling, with most cases of careless cycling being dealt with by fines.
Ten pedestrians were killed by cyclists and 262 seriously injured between 2005 and 2009, official figures say.
Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom last month introduced a private member's bill to the Commons, proposing a new offence of causing death by dangerous cycling.
She used the example of 17-year-old Rhiannon Bennett, who was knocked down and killed by cyclist John Howard as she walked with friends in Buckingham in April 2007.
'Travelling fast'
The South Northamptonshire MP told the Commons: "There needs to be a charge that reflects the seriousness and consequences of a cyclist's actions."
"A cyclist approached the group at speed, jumping from the road to cut across the pavement and yelling, 'Move! I'm not stopping!"'
"He was travelling so fast the group had no time to act. He hit Rhiannon, knocking her over and smashing her head against the kerb.
"She was rushed to hospital with head injuries and she died six days later."
Magistrates later convicted Howard, then aged 36, of Buckingham, of dangerous cycling and fined him £2,200.
Mrs Leadsom compared the penalty with the maximum 14-year jail term to which a judge could sentence a motorist convicted of causing death by dangerous driving.
Normally, private members' bills stand little chance of becoming law, without government backing.
But the Department of Transport told BBC News it was considering backing the proposed legislation and would make a decision "in due course" after consultation with the Ministry of Justice.
Road Safety Minister Mike Penning said: "I have met with Rhiannon Bennett's family and have the deepest sympathy with them.
"I am clear that everyone who uses the road - including cyclists - has a responsibility to behave safely and with consideration for others.
"My Department will consider the merits of the proposed Dangerous and Reckless Cycling Bill in consultation with the Ministry of Justice."
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Proposals to mitigate the impact of UK-wide welfare reforms in Northern Ireland have been published.
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By Mark DevenportBBC News NI Political Editor
The scheme has been published by a group led by Eileen Evason, a professor in social administration.
It comes in more than £80m under the £585m budget assigned to it as part of November's Fresh Start deal.
The scheme proposes a series of supplementary payments to carers, people suffering ill health and families on low incomes.
It also proposes that resources originally allocated to help those losing out due to tax credit cuts be used to help those affected by the introduction of universal credit.
Consequences
The Evason group is also funding a system of independent advice to help claimants deal with the changes.
Prof Evason believes the regime of harsh sanctions already introduced elsewhere in the UK has led to deaths and suicides.
She hopes a monitoring and protection system here will avoid some of the worst consequences of welfare reform.
Although the overall mitigation scheme is due to last for four years, each individual claimant will get help for just one year after being deemed eligible.
Claimants who lose more than £10 a week as a result of the phasing out of Disability Living Allowance will get payments equal to 75% of their loss.
The report includes a proposal that claimants who have a conflict-related injury and are deemed ineligible for the new Personal Independence Payments should get extra points to help them qualify for help.
As expected, the mitigation scheme covers Stormont's decision not to introduce the spare room subsidy, also known as the bedroom tax.
The report also includes recommendations that Stormont should pilot strategies to tackle food poverty, potentially through a network of community food shops, social stores and supermarkets.
Prof Evason says she had a positive meeting on Monday with the first and deputy first ministers and she is confident they will adopt her working group's proposals.
She has suggested to the ministers that they should divert the £84m her group has not allocated to health and projects for vulnerable people.
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A compulsory purchase order is to be served on the disused Dreamland theme park in Margate after negotiations with the current owner fell through.
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Thanet District Council is backing a scheme to turn the site into a heritage park with historic rides and sideshows to help regenerate the Kent town.
Transfer of the land had been agreed in principle by landowner Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company.
But the council said it had been unable to agree details after a year of talks.
Vintage rides salvaged from Blackpool and Southport have been bought for the £12m heritage amusement park on Margate seafront.
The attraction is to be centred on the Grade II listed Scenic Railway, the oldest rollercoaster in the UK, badly damaged in an arson attack in 2008.
The park will be run by the Dreamland Trust, which will be given the site by the council for a peppercorn rent.
'Huge amounts'
The council said millions had already been invested in the project by Thanet, the government and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The heritage amusement park is seen as a vital ingredient in the regeneration of Margate, along with the Turner Contemporary art gallery which opened further along the seafront last month.
"Because of the importance of this site to the town's future, we need to take action to ensure that the heritage amusement park goes ahead," said the council's chief executive Richard Samuel.
"Huge amounts of money have already been invested to bring this project to fruition and we can wait no longer for agreement from the landowners.
"This is not something we wanted to do, but the failure of the owners to reach a sensible agreement has left us with no choice but to take compulsory purchase action.
"We have been in negotiations for many months now and we feel that we have been generous to a fault."
Chair of the Dreamland Trust, Nick Laister, said: "With all the technical work now complete and a substantial part of the funding in place, the acquisition of the site by the council will allow the trust to commence work on the implementation of what is a key project for the regeneration of Margate."
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A Nuclear Decommissioning Authority boss has given a presentation to councillors on plans to move nuclear material from Scotland to England.
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The NDA has sought approval for its scheme to transport breeder material from Dounreay in Caithness to Sellafield for reprocessing.
The first of about 50 movements could start this summer.
Dr Adrian Simper, head of strategy at the NDA, addressed Highland councillors in Inverness.
He gave his presentation to Highland Council's transport, environmental and community services committee.
Ahead of the meeting, Dr Simper told BBC Radio Scotland that Dounreay did not have the capability to reprocess the material.
He said this was because the site was at an advanced stage of being demolished and cleaned up.
Dr Simper added: "If it was to stay at Dounreay it is not clear how we would restore the site."
Approval for the NDA's plan to shift the 44 tonnes of breeder material over a period of four to five years has been sought from the Office for Nuclear Regulation and Office for Civil Nuclear Regulation.
Breeder is classed as material and not as fuel or waste, by the NDA.
The material comprises cylinders of uranium metal, about 150mm long and 35mm in diameter known as "pucks".
Fourteen pucks are stacked end-to-end in a stainless steel tube. The tubes were positioned vertically to form an outer ring around experimental Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR).
The uranium metal captured neutrons from the reactors inner core and produced plutonium which could be removed and converted into fuel.
Last year, the NDA set out its options for the breeder material in a public consultation document.
The paper reported that handling it at Sellafield would be cheaper than dealing with it at Dounreay where a new reprocessing plant and store would have to be built.
The safety record for transporting nuclear material was proven and any employment generated from managing it at the Scottish site would be short-term, according to the document.
In November, the NDA said local authorities would receive some information to pass on to communities close to the lines the trains would follow.
However, it said the exact timings of the trains and security measures would remain confidential.
Friends of the Earth Scotland has opposed the rail plan and said the material should be dealt with at Dounreay.
Stan Blackley said moving the material opened it to the "risk of accident and mishap".
He added: "The best thing to do is reprocess it and store it on site in Caithness."
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A bizarre traffic calming idea in Dorset didn't quite end up as intended. What happened, asks Tom de Castella.
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Magazine MonitorA collection of cultural artefacts
It began as a saga about wonky white lines. A typical English residential street with one unexpected quirk - the dotted line down the middle appeared to take leave of its senses. The road in Wimborne, Dorset, was straight as an arrow, but the centre line made a series of meanderings. Soon photos of the wonky road markings had gone from local to national press. It fitted into the modern journalistic genre of road marking porn - exhibit A the double yellow line in a tiny Swindon alleyway barely wide enough for a bicycle, exhibit B a code to those gnomic squiggles on the tarmac.
Wordplay was to the fore in the Wimborne coverage. "Long and winding road baffles drivers on the rat-run," offered the Times. The Daily Mail suggested that motorists "are being driven around the bend." Locals expressed confusion. One suggested it might be down to drunken traffic engineers. Far from being the result of a workman's liquid lunch, the arcing lines were deliberate, said Dorset County Council. It was all a cunning plan - or "traffic engineering scheme" - to slow vehicles down, said Adrian Norcombe, from the council's highways department. It appears to be a one-off. Traffic flow expert Prof Benjamin Heydecker at University College London says it's the first such wavy line he's seen. He's a fan. "It looks good. It guides the traffic away from the parking bay." By creating uncertainty in the mind of the driver, you give them a subtle nudge to slow down, added a spokeswoman at the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation.
And yet, there was still time for a twist. After the story broke, the council did a U-turn on the wonky lines. It decided to make them slightly less, erm, wonky. "After recent resurfacing work the lines were renewed, but the curve in the markings was more pronounced than it should have been," the council's latest statement reads. "We have now corrected this and apologise for any problems this may have caused." And thus a tale about wonky lines ends up as parable about the dangers of messing with traditional traffic iconography. Or as a Dorset County Council spokeswoman says: "Road markings and road signs are quite an emotive subject."
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New street art by "guerrilla artist" Banksy has been removed within hours of being found in Bristol.
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The artwork, showing a couple embracing while checking their mobile phones, was posted on Banky's website on Monday and discovered on Clement Street earlier.
Hours later, the nearby Broad Plains Boys Club removed it with a crowbar.
The Banksy - believed to be on plywood - has been replaced with a note saying it was held at the club "to prevent vandalism or damage being done".
The work was discovered by Banksy fan Sally, who managed to track it down using the photo-sharing website Flickr and Google Street View.
"I was so excited, I popped down there and took a couple of photos - just after 10pm - but didn't tweet them because it's only held on with screws and I was worried the first person to go there would be a thief."
Gordon Powell, a youth worker from the club, said: "We're open all the time, day and night, so people can come and see it for a small donation.
"The club is 120 years old and we need £120,000 to keep the club open.
"There's a massive wall he [Banksy] could have done it on but he didn't, so we think he did it to help us raise the money."
The discovery of the new artwork came after Cheltenham Borough Council said it would be happy to help protect a piece of art, believed to be by Banksy, on a wall in the town.
Depicting three men using listening devices to "snoop" on a telephone box, it appeared on Sunday on the side of a house in Fairview Road.
A council spokeswoman said: "The council cannot condone graffiti which is put on to people's property without their permission.
"However, we recognise that the public do see work by Banksy as significant pieces of public art and it is clear that this piece has been getting a huge amount of favourable attention.
"It would be a shame if it was removed or damaged.
"As the artwork is on private property, it is the for the property owner to decide whether they would want it to be kept - they would need to consider the impact this may have on the residents of the property and the wider community.
"Although we still do not know if it is original work by Banksy, given the public interest, we would be happy to help the owner find a solution which would protect it from tagging or other graffiti."
The spokeswoman said the council was trying to get in touch with the owner of the property, but it had so far failed to make contact.
Karren Smith, who lives in the rented house, said she was "amazed" when she first saw the mural and by the number of people turning up to view it.
"It's really good. It was quite horrible before - just a white wall.
"It's been mental. It's completely mad. Yesterday the path was so chock-a-block. People had to step on to the road to get past.
"We're not even this busy on race week."
One famous early Banksy artwork, depicting a gorilla in a pink mask, was mistakenly painted over in Bristol in 2011.
Other Banksy images, including examples in Bristol, London, Southampton, New York and Melbourne, were vandalised or accidentally covered.
Banksy has not yet claimed the work in Cheltenham but it bears his hallmarks, according to other street artists.
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Fans asked to vote for their favourite episode from surreal 1970s TV series The Goodies have made their choice.
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By Caroline Le MarechalBBC News, Bristol
The sketch Kung Fu Kapers was announced as the winner at Bristol's Slapstick Festival, which is celebrating the show's 50th anniversary.
Chris Daniels, from the Festival, said he was delighted fans had picked "such a creative and innovative episode".
The show starred Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor, collectively known as The Goodies.
The festival has brought the three men together for a special reunion at the sold-out event, at the Redgrave Theatre on Saturday, where the winning episode will also be screened.
Mr Daniels said there had been a "brilliant response" to the poll, with more than 600 people responding online.
"In terms of 'favourite episode of all time', I was surprised about Kung Fu Kapers because I thought Kitten Kong would be the top choice, purely because it's the best known image associated with the Goodies.
"I do remember Kung Fu Kapers [transmitted in March 1975] - it's one of their standout episodes. I remember seeing it as a child - as a kid, I just loved it.
"It's the silliness and the stupidity of it that I loved - grown men, dressed up and hitting each other with giant sausages," Mr Daniels said.
Goodie Graeme Garden said he had also expected Kitten Kong to win "as that's the one people seem to remember".
"However, our voters seem to have been a discerning lot, and have carefully considered their decision," Mr Garden said.
"[Kung Fu Kapers] is a worthy winner - some nice set-pieces, a bit of parody, and one or two gags that were very much of their time.
"Filming the fight sequences, I don't think any of us got hurt, which was miraculous.
"My abiding memory is falling headfirst into a vat of gunge, live in front of the studio audience - not much chance of a retake if it went wrong."
Chris Daniels said the Goodies' humour "still resonates with audiences".
"Slapstick is a perennial type of humour that crosses generations," he said.
"Whether it's Tom and Jerry or Charlie Chaplin or The Goodies, audiences still engage with the best visual comedy and humour - and The Goodies did it so well."
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Voters across north-east England have given the thumbs down to European Union membership.
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With all results now declared, people in 11 areas voted to leave.
Newcastle was the only one supporting Remain, and that was by the narrow margin of 1%.
Sunderland, Gateshead, Darlington, Durham, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar and Cleveland, North Tyneside and South Tyneside, and Northumberland voted leave.
In most cases it was by a large margin.
See local results here
Following the early Sunderland result, the value of the pound sterling dropped by about 3% on the markets.
Follow the latest news on the BBC's live EU referendum page
Reaction and updates from the North East.
UKIP and Leave Sunderland organiser, Richard Elvin, put the result down to voters responding to Remain "scaremongering" over the future of the Nissan plant.
Both areas are traditionally Labour, and shadow home secretary Andy Burnham told local supporters who had voted to leave that "we hear you".
He said: "We understand what you are saying. This referendum can't mark the end of the process."
UKIP leader Nigel Farage tweeted: "So happy with the results in North East England."
As the extent of the Leave vote emerged across the region, former business secretary and Remain campaigner Sir Vince Cable, said: "I think people in the highly-deprived areas of the North East are expressing their frustration in this way."
Bridget Philipson, the Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, described the result as "disappointing".
She said: "It is a reflection on the fact that people in the North East feel that time and time again we're left behind.
"When it comes to jobs and investment, support from this government is found to be lacking."
Richard Moss, Political Editor, BBC Look North
The Leave campaign expected to do well, but has done better than it might have thought, with so far only Newcastle voting to remain.
It is also performing particularly strongly on Teesside, with in Hartlepool seven out of 10 people voting for Brexit.
Labour is saying austerity is to blame, but Vote Leave says people didn't buy the scaremongering stories about job losses.
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An eight-year-old boy who is losing his sight due to a rare disease ticked off a bucket list "dream day" by cuddling police puppies and playing officer.
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Oscar Jealous, from Kingstanding, Birmingham, spent the day with West Midlands Police at Bournville station.
The youngster, who has life-limiting Batten disease, went behind the wheel of a police car, played in cell blocks and held the newest canine recruits.
He and his younger brother Charlie were also given warrant cards as a memento.
Oscar was diagnosed with the degenerative condition in February and compiled a list of 30 "dream days".
His aunt, PC Laura Colclough, arranged the visit after telling the force about her police-mad nephew.
She said: "Oscar and Charlie are both obsessed with the police - probably from having an auntie that catches robbers - so being a police officer was one of the first entries on his bucket list.
"Oscar has lost almost all his sight now but there are lots of sounds in a police station to keep him entertained.
"He's had a fantastic day and it's heart-warming to see the smile on his face."
A GoFundMe page set up to help Oscar's family pay for specialist care and to fulfil his wishlist has raised £30,000.
It includes going on the set of his favourite TV show, Tipping Point, and meeting Harry Kane, both of which have been pledged, as well as flying in a helicopter, meeting Father Christmas in Lapland and going up the Eiffel Tower.
PC Colclough added: "We are truly overwhelmed with the offers of support, many from people who don't know us, and I cannot thank people enough for getting behind us to give Oscar some time to remember."
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More solutions are needed to prevent future flooding of the north Devon village of Braunton, the council and local businesses say.
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Dozens of properties in Braunton were affected by flooding during the weekend before Christmas, despite the village having a new £1m flood defence scheme.
The Environment Agency said flood defences functioned but were "overwhelmed".
Rodney Cann from North Devon Council said long-term work was needed.
'Better contingency plans'
The flood defences, completed in June, were meant reduce to the likelihood of flooding from the River Caen from a one-in-20 chance of occurring in a particular year to one-in-100.
However, the main road was left under under several feet of water after heavy rain resulted in the river breaching a section of the defences.
Firefighters used pumps to clear 7,000 litres of water a minute from the roads as rain eased.
Mr Cann, the North Devon councillor responsible for environmental matters, said better contingency plans were needed in the short-term.
He said: "There was quite a large supply of sandbags available, but I believe more need to be in place and accessible to everyone.
"In the long-term, we need another look at the whole system.
"In fairness to the Environment Agency, the new works helped - but they didn't solve the problem."
The London Inn was closed after water reached the height of the bar's surface.
The pub had been refurbished only seven months previously, but the floods meant it would have to be stripped out and refurbished again, landlord Mark Ridge said.
Mr Ridge, who took over the pub in 2012, added that he was hoping to reopen, but other businesses had been told they would not.
He said: "A couple of business have been told they won't be opening again, which is a great shame.
"It's going to be a knock for Braunton."
Annette Essex, of the Top 'n' Tails Pet Shop, whose stock room was affected, said businesses were open, or trying to reopen quickly, but work was needed to dispel shoppers' concerns.
She said: "It affects trade when people think we're all closed."
The Environment Agency said it will hold a day-long seminar in the village's Braunton Parish Hall on Thursday from 12:00 GMT until 19:00 ,for people to share their experiences and see what lessons can be learned.
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Coptic Christians have celebrated Christmas Eve amid tight security, following a bomb attack on a church in Egypt in which 23 people died.
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Armed police protected churches as Copts, who mark Christmas according to the Julian calendar, gathered in large numbers, many wearing black.
Some Muslims held vigils outside Coptic churches in a gesture of solidarity.
The services passed off peacefully, despite some radical Islamist websites urging more attacks.
Heightened security measures were expected to remain in place on Friday for Coptic Christmas Day.
The bombing of the al-Qiddissin, or Saints', Church in Alexandria on New Year's Day was the worst act of sectarian violence in Egypt in a decade.
It triggered days of protests and riots by Christians blaming the government for encouraging discrimination and not doing enough to protect them.
In response, the Egyptian authorities stepped up security around many churches, with explosives experts on hand.
Armoured vehicles have been stationed in key areas.
Earlier on Thursday, one device containing nails and fireworks was found in a church staircase in the southern city of Minya but it had no detonator.
Police in Cairo, Alexandria and other places checked the identities of those entering churches.
A street away from the Saints Church in Alexandria, two dozen Muslims held a solidarity gathering holding banners saying "No to terrorism, yes to citizenship" and "Long live the cross and the crescent."
One Muslim woman, Hanan Mahfouz, told the Associated Press at a Mass in a Cairo suburb: "Coming here seemed like the least I could do."
However, radical Islamist websites have been circulating lists of Coptic churches in Egypt and Europe with instructions on how to attack them.
"Blow up the churches while they are celebrating Christmas or any other time when the churches are packed," says a line from a video attributed to al-Qaeda, entitled Jihadi Encyclopaedia for the Destruction of the Cross, that has been widely circulated on the internet.
Pope Benedict XVI used his weekly address in St Peter's Square in the Vatican on Thursday to send "heartfelt greetings and best wishes to our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Churches who will celebrate Christmas tomorrow".
In the wake of the Egypt attack, he said: "May the goodness of God... strengthen the faith, hope and charity of everyone and give comfort to the communities that are being tested."
Some European governments have also announced security measures at churches.
It was during Coptic Christmas Eve celebrations in southern Egypt in 2009 that six Christians and a Muslim security guard were killed in a drive-by shooting.
The country's Coptic Christian minority makes up between 7% and 14% of Egypt's 80 million people.
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A Hong Kong bookseller who went missing last year says he considered taking his own life many times while in custody in China.
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By Juliana LiuBBC News, Hong Kong
Lam Wing-kee, 61, was the manager of a well-known bookstore that sold titles critical of the Chinese leadership.
Mr Lam was one of five booksellers who were imprisoned for months in cases that made international headlines.
He believes they were taken by an elite Chinese law enforcement group which targeted authors and booksellers.
One of the men, Gui Minhai, is still in custody.
Mr Lam, who was released on Tuesday, was the owner of the Causeway Bay Bookstore before it was purchased by Mr Gui in 2004.
Mr Lam told the BBC that he was accused after his arrest last October of trying to overthrow the Chinese government by mailing books to the mainland.
"They never told what the punishment for selling illegal books could be, or how long it might be. I had no idea. They could have sentenced me without consulting any sort of legal standard.
"Maybe I'd get five years in prison, or 10 years. I had no idea at all," he said.
He said that he had contemplated suicide in January and February but could not make any attempts because of the design of his cell.
"I was looking for a place up there to hang myself... but there wasn't," he said. He was not physically abused, he says, but endured months of solitary confinement, interrogations and psychological torture.
HK bookseller's 'toothbrush suicide watch'
Mr Lam was arrested while visiting the Chinese city of Shenzhen. He says he was taken, blindfolded, to the eastern city of Ningbo, where he was held until March.
In March, when three of his colleagues were released and returned to Hong Kong, Mr Lam was transferred to a room in the city of Shaoguan in Guangdong province, where he said he enjoyed more freedom.
China and the booksellers
1. Lui Bo, general manager. Went missing: Shenzhen, 15 October 2015 Returned: March 2016
2. Cheung Jiping, business manager. Went missing: Dongguan, 15 October Returned: March 2016
3. Gui Minhai, co-owner. Went missing: Thailand, 17 October Still missing
4. Lam Wing-kee, manager. Went missing: Shenzhen, 23 October Returned: June 2016
5. Lee Po, shareholder. Went missing: 30 December - he says from the mainland, Mr Lam says it was from Hong Kong Returned: March 2016
Hong Kong's missing booksellers and 'banned' Xi Jinping book
Booksellers are innocent, says author
China confirms Hong Kong bookseller investigation
Mr Lam says he was released this week on the condition that he would retrieve a hard disk filled with the names of people, mainly mainland Chinese, who had bought books from the Mighty Current publisher.
He says he has no intention of handing over the data, and has no regrets about speaking freely about what happened to him.
Special team
Who exactly was behind the operation to detain the booksellers, one of whom disappeared from Thailand and another from Hong Kong?
For months, there has been debate on whether the campaign was ordered by the highest levels of the Chinese leadership, or, perhaps, by lower levels of officialdom keen to impress the government in Beijing.
Some believe the crackdown was prompted by the imminent publication of a book about the private life of President Xi Jinping.
Mr Lam says he does not know for sure.
But, he says, he was held by officials from an ad-hoc cross-agency law-enforcement team that can be convened only by the senior leadership in Beijing.
This elite group has roots stretching all the way back to the Cultural Revolution, when its officers were responsible for investigating Communist Party luminaries such as Liu Shaoqi.
More recently, it was believed to be responsible for investigating former security tsar Zhou Yongkang and the former Communist Party chief in Chongqing, Bo Xilai.
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Obese patients are getting too big to fit into some MRI scanning machines, NHS chiefs have said.
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Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said it has had to abandon more than 200 scans since 2014 and has added a mobile scanner to tackle the problem.
Patients have been warned they could be putting their own lives at risk if they can't get scans to spot illnesses.
The British Dietetics Association says the size of scanning equipment is not growing in line with obesity rates.
And chief executive of the Society of Radiographers Richard Evans said growing waistlines was piling on pressure on the NHS.
"It causes inconvenience to waiting lists - particularly if it's not clear the patient will not fit in the machine until the day of the appointment itself," said Mr Evans.
"Then there is the additional problem that comes with rearranged appointments such as the added costs to the NHS when services are already under such pressure."
Some health boards have been forced to buy extra-large scanners or send patients to out-of-area hospitals for examinations.
The hole size of standard scanner measures 68cm (26in) and some hospitals put a 25-stone (158kg) limit on patients using them.
"The statistics are quite clearly showing increasing rates of obesity but services and equipment doesn't seem to be growing in line with that," said Sioned Quirke of the British Dietetics Association.
MRI scanners are used to detect a number of internal illnesses, injuries or conditions and are a vital tool for doctors wanting to diagnose ailments.
A spokeswoman for the Cardiff and Vale health board said: "We do our very best to ensure that all radiology patients have equity of service.
"Patients who require a conventional MRI scan should fall within certain parameters, the scanner table holds a maximum weight of 25 stone and the bore of a conventional MRI scanner is 68 inches."
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Campaigners fighting to save a run-down former school in Wrexham may have been handed a lifeline.
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Wrexham council voted to demolish Groves High School in January - more than a decade after it closed.
But campaigners wrote to heritage body Cadw requesting the building be given special status, and a Grade II listing is now being considered.
If granted, a Welsh Government spokesman said it would make the building "difficult to be demolished".
The school closed in 2003 and has fallen into disrepair.
In its draft listing description, Cadw states the building is to be "listed for its special architectural interest on the grounds of its quality and character".
It is said to be a key example of an inter-war girl's grammar school in the neo-classical tradition which has survived largely intact.
Elaine Guntrip-Thomas, chairman of the Save Our Heritage campaign group, said she was delighted that Cadw has "recognised the importance that this building plays in defining the heritage of Wrexham".
The Welsh government's economy and infrastructure secretary, Ken Skates, said: "Following careful consideration of a spot listing request submitted to Cadw earlier this year, I feel that the former Grove Park School in Wrexham should be awarded Grade II listed status."
He is now consulting with Wrexham council and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales before making any final decision.
Mr Skates added: "Any listing would regulate the demolition of the building through a process known as listed building consent."
Wrexham council wants to clear the site in preparation for a new school.
The leader, Councillor Mark Pritchard said they had been contacted by the Welsh Government to confirm it owns the former Groves school building.
He said: "We will respond and we will seek clarification about the listing and the listing process.
"Education on this site remains a priority for the council."
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A tidal barrage at Bridgwater and dredging on the Somerset Levels form part of a £100m plan to combat flooding, the BBC understands.
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Villages on the Levels have been cut off for more than two months following the wettest winter on record.
Prime Minster David Cameron has said that "money is no object" in sorting out the current flooding problems.
Dozens have contributed to the 20-year Flood Action Plan, which is due to be presented to the government.
The draft report, seen by the BBC, goes in to detail on a number of measures to prevent a repeat of this winter's floods.
It lists actions that could either help prevent flooding, or reduce the impact when it happens, and gives some idea of costs and ease with which they could be done.
The government has already pledged £10m in support for Somerset, but the report suggests 10 times that amount will be needed over the next decade alone.
The plan includes a barrage across the River Parrett downstream of Bridgwater, to hold back the highest tides - but estimates it would be 15 years before that would be built.
It also suggests that the A361 and routes into cut-off communities - including Muchelney - are raised, but adds that this will require further investigation.
The report includes plans previously announced to dredge five miles (8km) of the rivers Tone and Parrett - restoring them to their condition in the 1960s.
It estimates this should start at the end of the month and that it will cost more than £5.5m and then £1.2m each year to maintain.
It also includes repairs to around 28 miles of flood-affected roads, resurfacing them with more flood resilient material and looking at making the pumps at Dunball and Beer Wall permanent to help clear water more quickly.
Local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger backed plans for a barrage saying the county had got to the point that it was a "no-brainer".
"I don't think there's any doubt about that - we could have saved an enormous amount of worry, time and expense by having the barrage," he said.
"The big problem is that you've always had environmentalists saying 'you can't dam rivers' but actually thousands of houses are under threat by not having a barrage."
The Conservative MP said the government had already started to look at the possibility of raising roads.
The 23 page Somerset Levels and Moors Flood Action Plan has been compiled by Somerset County Council, the Environment Agency, residents and other interested parties.
They have also called on the government to look at who manages the water system and how it is all paid for.
The report is expected to be delivered to Environment Minister Owen Paterson on Thursday.
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Thousands of people are expected to line the River Foyle on Monday morning to welcome home the Derry-Londonderry-Doire yacht.
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The yacht has won the home leg of the Clipper Round the World yacht race.
The win puts the crew in fourth place and in contention to challenge for the third spot on the podium.
Thousands of people are expected to line the quay to welcome the crew at about 11:00 BST.
The 2,800-mile leg from New York to Derry was the 14th stage in the 16-series race.
The arrival of the race into Derry had been delayed because of poor weather conditions caused by light winds and high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean.
Some of the yachts had been expected to arrive in the city on Saturday, but will now start to arrive on Monday.
Derry is the penultimate stopover on the world's longest ocean race, which left London in September.
A nine-day maritime festival, with a race village, summer promenade and sea-faring activities began in Derry on Saturday.
Up to 100,000 people are expected in the city during the programme of events.
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Every year, the public seem to be interested in everything to do with the Oscars. Except, that is, for the ceremony itself.
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By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter in Los Angeles
This year's event takes place on Sunday night, but while most of us enjoy finding out who's won best actress or best picture, fewer people than ever have been actually tuning in to watch the telecast.
Last year, the ceremony's live audience was the lowest in in Oscars history, averaging 26.5 million viewers, down from 32.9 million in 2017.
The increased competition from streaming services will certainly have played a part - but it's also likely to be audience fatigue at how bloated the three-and-a-half hour ceremony has become.
"The first Oscars took less than 10 minutes," points out Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter, "which was obviously pre-television.
"Television came along, and networks paid a fortune for the Oscars, and as a result they expected a more complete kind of show.
"That meant no longer just handing out the awards but adding performance elements, so it became more telegenic, to include singing, dancing and comedy."
Comedians like Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Kimmel have recently hosted the show to keep the audience entertained between awards and with an opening stand-up routine.
There are also traditionally five musical performances from the best original song nominees.
But adding all these elements to the 24 categories means the telecast is just too long for some viewers to bear.
Consequently, the Academy had this year attempted to bring some changes to try and keep audiences tuning in - most significantly by shortening the length of the telecast to three hours.
But they've since had to row back on nearly all their time-saving decisions due to pressure from the film industry.
What were the proposals?
The Academy initially said that the winners of four of the categories would be announced during commercial breaks, with edited highlights being shown in the latter part of the telecast.
The prizes for cinematography, film editing, live-action short and makeup and hairstyling would have been given out while the audience at home is grabbing extra TV snacks.
But, suggests Feinberg: "That would've been really risky.
"During commercials, when people at the ceremony know they're not live on the air, they run around and talk to people, go to the bathroom, be a little loud, and that could've come across as disrespectful to the winners who are getting their awards during that time."
Several high-profile figures in the film industry, including Spike Lee, Seth Rogen and Martin Scorsese, also objected to the change.
So the Academy reinstated the categories, and told its members last week: "All awards will be presented without edits, in our traditional format."
With the same number of categories to get through, the biggest time-saver may end up being the lack of a host.
After Kevin Hart's departure, the Academy confirmed this year would instead just have a mixture of celebrities introducing individual categories.
Jennifer Lopez, Whoopi Goldberg, Daniel Craig, Awkwafina and Tina Fey are among those who the Academy will be hoping keep viewers at home engaged.
It means the opening monologue from the host will be skipped, also saving time, but it's unlikely the ceremony will launch straight into handing out awards.
Karey Burke, the president of TV network ABC, which broadcasts the Oscars, says there is something special in the works to launch the ceremony.
"We have a very exciting opener planned. We are not going to go straight into people thanking their agents," she said.
There will also be a tightening up of the rules around acceptance speeches.
At the Academy's annual luncheon last month, nominees were told they'd have 90 seconds from the time their name is called until when their speech will need to be a concluded.
"It means you can hit the parties by 8:15," Oscars producer Glenn Weiss pointed out.
Such changes might make the ceremony tighter, but those may not be the only things preventing viewers from tuning in.
In his 10-point plan to save the Oscars last year, Piers Morgan suggested the Academy should "slash the musical performances in half and get rid of the best song category".
But the Academy confirmed it wouldn't be cutting any of the songs - so this year's nominees, including Lady Gaga, will perform as normal.
(They had initially flirted with the idea of only having a couple of the nominees perform, but this was another idea they quickly decided against after industry backlash.)
The only absentee from the best song performances will be Kendrick Lamar - who dropped out earlier this week due to logistical issues.
Artistic v popular
Not only will four of the best song nominees perform - but there will be a bonus musical performance Queen and Adam Lambert, the Academy announced last week.
They're being included because one of the nominated films this year is the band's biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
Another of Morgan's suggestions was: "Stop giving the best picture award to obscure films very few non-movie people actually see, like or understand."
His last point referred to the number of small, arthouse films that have won in recent years at the expense of box office smashes.
In 2017, for example, the hugely popular La La Land, which grossed $440m (£334m), lost out to Moonlight, which took less than a fifth of that - $65m (£49m).
"If you look at the numbers over the years, the ratings closely correlate to the popularity of the best picture nominees, because then people feel they have a rooting interest in the outcome," says Feinberg.
"Last year, it's not surprising the ratings took a hit because Three Billboards and The Shape of Water were not the films the audiences were going to in big numbers.
"If they'd nominated something like Wonder Woman, I think the numbers probably would've been a little better. This year, they have a lot riding on Black Panther.
"It's important for ABC, the Academy, Disney, that Black Panther not be snubbed."
Black Panther's popularity is perhaps one of the reasons the Academy attempted to introduce a new category this year to recognise more box office hits.
Last August, it announced the introduction of the popular film category, which Black Panther would not only have definitely been nominated for, but would most likely have also won.
But this turned out to be another decision they would backtrack on - blaming the complications of introducing a new category so late in the year, when studios hadn't had time to prepare or target their promotional campaigns towards awards season.
It also would've meant yet another category to get through on the night - and most agree the Academy certainly doesn't need any more of those.
"Over the years the number of categories at the Oscars has grown," says Feinberg, "and it's much easier to add categories than it is to take them off the air.
"And that's because once a category is on the air, the people who would be affected by it don't want to lose that potential air time for their area of work."
Keeping the Oscars both short and entertaining is a surprisingly tall order in this day and age of short attention spans.
All eyes will be on Hollywood on Sunday night to find out whether they can pull it off.
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 report looking at how equal men and women are in Jersey says the States needs to address gender inequality.
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The report is by the Jersey Community Relations Trust, a charity that aims to eliminate discrimination.
It said the States needed to prioritise the cost and organisation of child care to help improve equality for working women.
It also raised concerns about the absence of discrimination legislation or maternity and parental leave laws.
'True equality'
Constable Deirdre Mezbourian said Jersey should get parental leave laws.
That would mean men could take time off work to look after their children instead of women.
She said: "As we walk through town we do see more men pushing prams and looking after children.
"Is that because their partners are at work first thing in the morning?
"The law needs to be brought in and what a shame that as a society we have to rely on legislation before we have true equality."
The report also said the high cost of childcare was limiting job choices for women.
The Jersey Community Relations Trust report said the representation of women in the States Assembly was "unacceptably low" at just 23% and only a third of managers and senior directors in Jersey were women.
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Repair work will be carried out on an artificial surf reef off Dorset next month after two sand bags were damaged by a boat propeller.
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The £3.2m underwater reef in Boscombe was closed in March after an inspection found changes to its shape.
Divers have repaired one of the bags while the other, which had become detached, will be repaired in August.
The reef remains shut while current flows, thought to have been altered due to the damage, are monitored.
ASR Ltd, the firm which built the reef, is due to carry out further refinement work and improvements in August.
'Urgent protection'
The reef was created to enhance waves using 55 giant sand-filled bags, which are 740ft (225m) out at sea.
The damaged bag was removed and passed to Bournemouth Borough Council insurers.
Councillor Rod Cooper said: "The decision to use the retained funds to undertake these repair works represents the most practical way of ensuring the immediate and urgent protection for the future of the reef.
"The contribution the reef has made to the reputation of Boscombe as a destination cannot be underestimated."
He urged boat users to observe the cardinal mark and other buoys marking the reef.
Nick Behunin, of ASR Ltd, said: "We are pleased to have reached an agreement on the repair works for the Boscombe reef and that we will be able to start the improvement works at the same time."
The reef opened in November 2009 after lengthy delays and running over budget, as part of the regeneration of Boscombe seafront.
It has been criticised for not working properly but many traders have argued it has added to the regeneration of the once-rundown area.
The council has withheld £150,000 from New Zealand-based ASR Ltd after a specialist report found the reef had not achieved all of its objectives.
It will pay £55,000 when refinement work is finished and a further £95,000 if the improvements are successful.
ASR Ltd has denied the reef failed and said it was only one of the criteria, the wave lengths, where it had not met the requirements.
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Three people were injured and three suspects were taken into custody after a car crashed outside the US National Security Agency's headquarters.
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Gunfire rang out after the black SUV approached the facility in Fort Meade, Maryland, without authorisation.
There is no indication yet of any link to terrorism, FBI officials said.
The driver of the car, a civilian and an NSA police officer were taken to hospital, the agency said.
FBI special agent Gordon Johnson said the injured were all taken to hospital from the US Army base, which is about 30 miles (48km) north-east of Washington DC, after Wednesday morning's incident.
No injuries appeared to be related to the gunfire, he said, and it appeared the gunfire was directed at the vehicle as part of NSA security protocol.
"We believe there is no indication that anything more than an isolated incident of what happened here today this morning," said Mr Johnson, stressing that it was not terrorism related.
The civilian and the police officer suffered non-life threatening injuries, but the condition of the driver, an unidentified male, is unknown.
The other two people in the vehicle, both males, were taken into NSA custody.
The vehicle appears to be a hire car, Mr Johnson said.
He said that it was an ongoing investigation and "we're still in the fact-collecting business right now" when asked about the motive of the vehicle's occupants.
CBS News images showed the black sports utility vehicle with what looked like bullet holes in the front windscreen and its air bags appeared deployed.
It appeared to have collided into some NSA-stamped concrete barricade blocks outside the installation.
NBC News said its helicopter could see police surrounding a handcuffed man sitting on the ground.
The FBI said on Twitter after the incident: "NSA police and local law enforcement are addressing an incident that took place this morning at one of NSA's secure vehicle entry gates.
"The situation is under control and there is no ongoing security of safety threat."
Another statement from the NSA public affairs office said "a security incident" happened at one of its checkpoints known as Canine gate at around 07:00 local time (12:00 GMT).
Maryland Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger tweeted that the reported injuries were not from gunshots.
US President Donald Trump has been briefed on the incident.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected," said a White House spokeswoman, Lindsay Walters.
In March 2015, one person was killed and another seriously wounded after driving a vehicle up to the NSA's gate, ignoring commands to stop.
News reports later suggested the two occupants of the vehicle may have been under the influence of drugs after attending a party.
Despite highway signage, it is not unusual for motorists to take a wrong turn and end up at one of the heavily guarded gates to the sprawling NSA complex, where armed federal officers direct them to turn around.
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The developer of the Ubuntu operating system has turned to a crowdfunding site in an attempt to launch a handset pre-installed with its software.
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By Leo KelionTechnology reporter
London-based Canonical is seeking to raise $32m (£20.8m) over the next 30 days to produce 40,000 devices.
To succeed it needs to raise several times more cash than any other crowd-financed project has done before.
However, one market watcher said even if succeeds, the mobile OS would probably still struggle to gain ground.
Canonical has said that if it manages to hit its goal using Indiegogo's website it plans to deliver the phones to qualifying backers by May 2014.
Indiegogo's current funding record is $1,665,380 which was raised by Scanadu Scout - a scheme to build a Star Trek-style Tricorder medical scanning device.
Its rival Kickstarter's record is $10,266,845 for the Pebble smart watch.
As of Tuesday morning, the Ubuntu Edge phone had attracted just over $3,295,000 worth of pledges, but the terms of the campaign mean Canonical does not receive the cash unless it hits its target.
Premium price
Canonical says Linux-based Ubuntu is different to other smartphone operating systems because it can run the same desktop applications as a PC installed with its software.
Programs look like a standard mobile app when the handset is being used as a standalone device, and then change their user interfaces to that of a desktop application when the phone is docked with a monitor. In addition the OS supports apps written in the HTML5 web language, albeit at slower speeds.
Canonical began offering a version of its system which can be run on a limited number of Android devices in February, and does not charge for the download.
But it has decided that backers need to commit $600 on day one or $830 on the remaining days of the crowdfunding campaign to secure one of its forthcoming Ubuntu Edge handsets. That is roughly double the cost of LG's Nexus 4 mobile, which supports its software.
Canonical's founder, Mark Shuttleworth, defended the sum saying that, in return, enthusiasts would secure a "Formula 1" device.
"The new handsets will have substantially more Ram [random access memory] than a typical high-end phone," he told the BBC.
"I would describe today's devices as being more useful as a thin client... offloading most of the processing to the cloud.
"What we're interested in is the next generation, giving you enough horsepower to actually have the full desktop experience powered by the phone."
Record attempt
In addition to four gigabytes of Ram, the firm is also promising an above average 128GB of storage and to make the handset's 4.5in (11.5cm) screen out of sapphire crystal - a tough substance already used by the premium Vertu brand. It will also offer an option to boot into Android if desired.
Mr Shuttleworth said that the Ubuntu Edge would be made by an Asian manufacturer which already made handsets for other firms, but declined to name the company.
He added that his firm only expected to break even on the project, but hoped it would stoke wider interest in Ubuntu as Canonical pursued efforts to get other firms to sell devices pre-installed with its software.
However, he acknowledged that the size of the Indiegogo funding goal meant his firm risked failing to secure any cash.
"We're very sanguine we may not hit the green light level," he said.
"But I think the timing for a record attempt like this is very good - there's a sense the mobile industry has become constrained in its ability to deliver innovation.
"If you're focusing on very high volume markets there's a lot of risk to you in introducing a new technology to a device that you want to sell 40 or 50 million units."
Canonical makes money by charging for support and training for Ubuntu and also plans to take a share of sales from online marketplaces offered by handset makers who adopt its software.
New entrants
Ubuntu is seeking to gain ground in an increasingly crowded smartphone marketplace.
Google's Android and Apple's iOS currently dominate sales well ahead of Blackberry's BB10 and Microsoft's Windows Phone rivals.
Earlier this month, the first phones running Mozilla's Firefox OS also went on sale; Joalla recently started taking pre-orders for handsets running its Sailfish system, based on Nokia's cancelled Meego platform; and Samsung and Intel have just launched a $4m fund to encourage developers to make apps for the forthcoming Tizen system.
"There's a groundswell of operating systems coming to market," said Nick Dillon, senior analyst at the telecoms consultancy Ovum.
"The challenge for Ubuntu is it needs to offer something unique and compelling.
"Using your phone as your single device is different, but at the moment it seems a niche proposition.
"Ubuntu has been relatively successful in the PC market, but it's not a big consumer brand in the way some of the other big mobile companies - like Blackberry, Nokia and Microsoft are - and even they're having a tough time of it."
Canonical's campaign will run until 21 August.
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Nearly £1m has been spent by Somerset County Council compensating farmers during a planned farm sell-off.
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So far, £660,000 has been spent by the authority on paying farmers who are leaving tenancy agreements early - this will rise to £925,000 by March.
The council decided in June 2010 to review ownership of all its farms - previously some had been protected.
It said it had raised £9.6m selling off 18 farms and other land and property in the last two years.
The Tory-controlled county council will use the money to fund major building works and to install superfast broadband in the county.
Scepticism
However many farmers are sceptical about the figures.
"They told you they'd sold 18 farms - they haven't sold one yet on the change of policy," said Ben Smith, a tenant farmer near Ilminster.
"The 18 farms that have been sold were previous to the policy and that was under the Liberal Democrats, and that is going back seven years.
"It's terrible. Nobody knows where they're going, nobody knows what's happening."
Only farmers who are on longer-term contracts are being offered the compensation.
'No guarantees'
Farmer James Miller lives with his county farm tenant wife in Donyatt near Ilminster. They had their tenancy contract renewed in April for five years.
"Our farm, amongst others, I suspect are ones that have higher development potential in the longer term so there are strategically important but not necessarily right to sell at this minute.
"At the end of the five years it would be effectively reviewed again but there's no guarantees, a lot can happen in five years.
"The farm is now marked for development. We can't plan for the future. We would have to be mindful of looking for other opportunities but they are incredibly limited."
Tenant 'sweetener'
Michael Fry was a county farm tenant in Over Stowey for 20 years.
"It really is scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as the county council is concerned," he said.
"Here there are shouting out that they've got this huge black whole to fill and they need to sell the county farms to fill it.
"They've said they've got no money whatsoever and yet they can find up to £200,000 to buy back, in the form of a sweetener to tenants, and get vacant position of these farms."
'Services for all'
Conservative councillor David Huxtable is responsible for the sell-off.
"Our policy all along was to sell farms to the tenants. We were not in the business of dispossessing tenants," he said.
"We've been selling county farms ever since probably we bought them, back in the 20s or something.
"It was decided, I think fairly early on that farming is not a business that the county council should probably be in.
"It's a subsidy to a few people and we're trying to provide services for all.
"We are continuing with the policy and we will need the money to invest in the future."
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A plea for help to improve the fortunes of a south Wales valleys industrial town, which already has Unesco World Heritage Site status, has been made.
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By Andy RobertsBBC News
Residents of Blaenavon are being urged to share their time and ideas to help the town capitalise on its Big Pit and World Heritage Centre attractions.
Town centre manager Richard Morgan says shops are missing out on potential custom from tourists.
A public meeting on Tuesday aimed to recruit a "town team" of volunteers.
One of the cradles of the industrial revolution, Blaenavon's well-preserved 18th Century ironworks helped it earn the accolade of Unesco World Heritage Site status in 2000.
But the town has suffered from the decline of its traditional industries, despite efforts and investment to rebrand their sites as tourist attractions.
'Chicken and egg'
Mr Morgan, recently hired by Torfaen council, said more could be done to ensure that the town centre was attractive to visitors drawn to Blaenavon by its history.
"Blaenavon has benefited from physical regeneration but there's only so much a council can lead on," he said.
Tuesday's public meeting would give local residents a chance to have their say, he added.
"It's a chance for people from all walks of the community to come together and do something for the town.
"We will ask people what they'd like to do to improve the town and we'll help them do it."
Mr Morgan said that at one point in recent years, a Torfaen council survey showed that three-quarters of Blaenavon's shops were boarded up.
Chris Rowles, who runs Blaenavon post office, said it was a chicken-and-egg situation, with shops unable to thrive without visitors, but people would not visit if there were no shops.
He said previous initiatives including attempts to rival Hay-on-Wye as a town of booksellers had mixed results.
"We tried years ago with the book town idea but once the funding to subsidise the shops dropped off they started closing," he said.
"It's such a small community that we can't sustain shops on their own."
Mr Rowles said the closure in May of Blaenavon's last bank - a branch of HSBC - had also been a blow.
He said his own motto in seven years' running the post office was "diversify or die".
"We've done everything from bread to dry cleaning, gifts and cards, photocopying - anything that'll make a couple of bob."
Mr Rowles said there was the potential to generate more interest in the shops along Broad Street, which was used to portray a 1960s valleys high street in the BBC Wales TV series The Indian Doctor.
But he said the main B4246 road which ran through Blaenavon served to divide the town centre from even its nearest attractions.
"We have been fighting for years for better signage so that people can find us," he said.
"But once they get into the town and find there's little there, they turn around."
Susan Fiander-Woodhouse, owner and director of the Blaenafon Cheddar Company, claimed the introduction of a one-way system in 2007 cost traders half their business and forced many shops to close.
She said she was exploring the idea of a land train to take visitors from Big Pit to the town centre, but thought traders could do more to help their own situation.
"People don't open regular hours round here - if they're not smiling and greeting visitors when they arrive, they shouldn't complain," she said.
Footfall
Mr Morgan, who previously worked on regeneration schemes in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, said he and Torfaen council had an open mind about the sort of projects they could support.
Referring to the mission of retail expert Mary Portas to boost the nation's high streets, Mr Morgan said there was more to a town centre than its shops.
He thought a weekly market could help bring people into the town centre and boost local traders.
"The problem is that the footfall in the town is not as good as the footfall at the attractions," he said.
"People may come to Big Pit and spend five hours there, but never visit the town centre.
"The town is well placed for weekend visitors - it's got some really good independent shops, a very good bookshop, and the cheese company is well respected," he added.
"We could have one team of volunteers working to launch a market, while another team could spruce up the town with hanging baskets."
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Fears of a US-China trade war sent shudders through US and European stock markets on Monday, with Wall Street recording its worst day of 2019.
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The Dow Jones and S&P 500 fell 3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 3.5%.
It followed comments from President Donald Trump who accused Beijing of currency manipulation.
The Chinese yuan passed the seven-per-dollar level for the first time since 2008 - which surprised traders as Beijing usually supports the currency.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 closed 2.5% lower, while the main markets in Germany and France dropped around 2%.
Major exporters such as construction equipment maker Caterpillar and plane manufacturer Boeing fell 2.5%, while Apple was among the biggest casualties, sinking 5.2%.
Few sectors were left unscathed, with Nike and Macy's both seeing their respective share prices drop by around 3% each.
'Fading hopes'
Gold was trading at more than a six-year high on Monday, as investors put money into so-called safe haven assets. The Japanese yen and government bonds also rose as investors sought to cut back on risk.
The VIX volatility index, the so-called fear measure among investors, jumped 36%.
"Any hopes of a quick resolution with China are fading quickly," said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial.
Harry Tchilinguirian, global oil strategist at BNP Paribas, added: "The escalation of trade measures only reinforces concerns over global economic growth."
Crude oil prices fell - Brent crude was down 2.5% to $60.36 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate fell 1.7%, to $54.69.
Truce over
The market moves come amid rising trade tension between the US and China.
Chinese authorities said on Friday that they would fight back against Mr Trump's decision to impose 10% tariffs on $300bn of Chinese imports.
Mr Trump's move brought an end to a month-long trade truce, which he cemented on Monday when the president started tweeting about the yuan's move.
He tweeted it was "currency manipulation" which would "greatly weaken China".
The US Treasury department defines currency manipulation as when "countries manipulate the rate of exchange between their currency and the United States dollar for purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustment or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade".
No country has officially been named a currency manipulator by the US since Bill Clinton's administration did so to China in 1994.
China's central bank said it was not using its yuan currency as a tool to cope with external disturbances such as trade disputes. The yuan's exchange rate now was at an appropriate level in line with China's economic fundamentals and market demand and supply, it added.
In offshore markets, the yuan fell to its weakest since international trading in the Chinese currency began.
It now takes 7.0835 yuan to buy a dollar. The currency, down 1.5% in offshore markets, is heading for its biggest one-day drop in four years.
There are two yuan markets. The offshore one - based in places such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and London - doesn't fluctuate within a tight band like the onshore yuan market and is free of Beijing's control in that respect.
"The fallout has been most evident in the Asia region," MUFG analyst Derek Halpenny said. "We certainly expect to see general FX volatility increase in the coming days, with daily PBOC [People's Bank of China] yuan fixes an important focus each day."
While other Asian currencies such as the South Korean won were hit, falling 1.4% against the dollar, it also spurred demand for safe-haven currencies such as the Swiss franc and Japanese yen.
The breaching of the seven-per-dollar limit could lead to a flight out of domestic assets. In the last decade, there have been two periods of yuan weakness, in 2010 and a slower contraction between 2014 and 2016.
Those incidents precipitated bursts of capital flight that distorted the Chinese economy and forced the authorities to prop up the currency by using capital controls and purchases by state-run banks.
Meanwhile, Chinese seed and food company shares and rare-earth firms were boosted on hopes that Beijing will not buy more from the US.
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Issuing prison officers with cans of pepper spray will worsen the current "culture of conflict", a former prison governor has told BBC News.
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John Podmore, who worked at high-security Belmarsh Prison in London, said there was "a real risk the pepper sprays will be turned on the officers".
Prison officers in England and Wales are to be given synthetic pepper spray to help deal with disorder and violence, under new plans.
Prison officers have praised the move.
But the announcement came as the Prison Governors Association (PGA) accused the government of failing to react quickly enough to a "crisis" in jails.
The chemical incapacitant known as PAVA has been trialled in four jails - Hull, Preston, Risley in Warrington, and Wealstun in North Yorkshire.
It will be carried by officers in all publicly-run prisons for men from 2019.
The Ministry of Justice said the move, which will cost £2m, followed the "successful" six-month trials.
'What next? Tasers? Rifles?'
But Mr Podmore said it was part of a "downward spiral", adding: "The POA [the trade union for prison officers] are already now asking for Tasers. What next? Sidearms, rifles in conning towers on perimeters?"
Asked whether officers should be able to defend themselves against violent prisoners, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Good luck with one can of pepper spray against half a dozen prisoners.
"There is talk [from ministers] of this being a deterrent - I think for many prisoners it will be a challenge and there is a real risk the pepper sprays will be turned on the officers."
The MoJ said the spray would only be deployed in limited circumstances when there is serious violence or an imminent risk of it taking place and officers will receive training before being allowed to carry it.
'More positive feel in jails'
In a speech to the PGA conference later, president Andrea Albutt is to acknowledge there is a "more positive feel" in jails after staffing levels were increased and security boosted.
But she will say there has been a "subtle campaign" to blame governors for problems and that ministers do not have the "humility" to admit their policies - which had included budget cuts - were wrong.
An MoJ spokeswoman said: "Senior managers in prisons do vital work and we are grateful for their dedication and commitment.
"We acknowledge the ongoing challenges they face and, as the president notes, we have taken meaningful action to address them which is starting to yield results."
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