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In 1982, a secret Home Office exercise tested the UK's capacity to rebuild after a massive nuclear attack. Files recently released at the National Archives detail one short-lived proposal to recruit psychopaths to help keep order. | By Sanchia BergToday programme
More than 300 megatons of nuclear bombs are detonated over Britain, in the space of a 16-hour exchange. Many cities are flattened - millions are dead from the blast, millions more have survived and suffer radiation sickness. In bunkers are 12 regional commissioners with their staff, ready to come out and take charge. How do they do this? How do they restore order and begin to rebuild?
This was what a top-secret Home Office exercise intended to test in 1982, according to documents recently released at the National Archives. Optimistically termed Regenerate, this was a war game covering the first six months after the nuclear exchange of World War Three. It focused on one central region, the five counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire.
Officials imagined what would happen after the bombs had dropped. They knew the most likely targets in the area, and predicted how "rings" of damage would affect the country. At the epicentres of the bombs, there would be "unimaginable" damage, on the outer ring "broken panes" and "debris in the streets". The scientific advisers estimated 50% of the country would be untouched - though survivors could be affected by radiation fallout.
Planning the war game, one civil servant tried to imagine how law and order would be maintained. Jane Hogg, a scientific officer in the Home Office, envisaged the police would be busy helping "inadequate" people in disaster-struck areas, and suggested that another group could be recruited to help keep order.
"It is... generally accepted that around 1% of the population are psychopaths," she wrote.
"These are the people who could be expected to show no psychological effects in the communities which have suffered the severest losses."
Hogg suggested psychopaths would be "very good in crises" as "they have no feelings for others, nor moral code, and tend to be very intelligent and logical".
Her bosses were unconvinced. One scribbled: "I am not at all sure you convince me. I would regard them as dangerous whether or not recruited into post-attack organisation."
The psychopath option didn't make it into the game play, which was developed by the local government operational research unit.
The exercise set out a series of local events that those involved would have to respond to as war came closer, and after the bombs fell.
The "players", who would have been civil servants, officers from the police, fire services and military, were given choices as the scenario developed.
For instance, as the strike loomed, the game imagined the chief executive of South Yorkshire making "very pessimistic" public statements about survival in the event of war. Fifteen thousand families left his area and camped in nearby Derbyshire, in tents and caravans. What should be done, asked the game.
After the brief, deadly exchange, Exercise Regenerate imagined local headquarters being badly affected - Leicester bunker destroyed, HQ at Lincoln lost, HQ at Sheffield lost. Only Derbyshire, with its HQ at Matlock, was unaffected.
If this is starting to sound vaguely familiar, it's because it is very close to the plot of the award-winning BBC Drama Threads, which was broadcast in 1984. That followed the fortunes of two families in South Yorkshire, before and after nuclear war. Acclaimed at the time for its shockingly detailed portrayal of the impact of nuclear strike, it closely followed Exercise Regenerate. The drama's producer, Mick Jackson, knew about the game, and the file shows he'd made a formal request to observe it. He was turned down.
The breakdown - or disorder - depicted in Threads was how the game imagined the days and weeks after the strike. Vigilante groups emerged, challenging the authorities. Within the bunkers, morale fell. Some industry survived, but who would run it and how? The administration was weak.
In May 1982 at the Easingwold training centre in Yorkshire some officials tried to play the game. It did not work well. One player said it failed to go far enough - it was supposed to model what would happen up to 18 months after nuclear attack, but too much time was spent on the pre-strike period.
The officials went "back to the drawing board", only to discover the computer had been corrupted. That seems to have been the end of the exercise.
Lord Hennessy, author of The Secret State, said he'd never seen a civil defence exercise quite like this, where it was - albeit briefly - suggested psychopaths could be recruited to keep order after a nuclear strike. He described it as "extraordinary" and "bizarre", though noted that element was "stamped on pretty quickly".
He has seen many secret documents planning for nuclear war. "They always take my breath away," he said. "The sense of civil servants having to look into the abyss, imagine the unimaginable."
Twenty five years since the Cold War ended, most of this secret planning is known now. But Lord Hennessy said: "We still don't have the detailed plans for using the Royal Yacht as the Queen's bunker." In the event of nuclear war, he said, the yacht would be "lurking" in the sea lochs in Scotland out of reach of Soviet radar, with the Queen, Prince Philip, the Home Secretary on board.
"But I can't pick up the phone and ask the Queen: 'Can I have your Armageddon file, Ma'am?' That would be regarded as extremely bad form."
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The argument that a ban on women entering India's Sabarimala temple should be re-instated just because some women are supporting it, is a regressive and misleading argument, says historian and social commentator Devika J. | Of the many ironies that have unfolded in the wake of the violence in defence of "custom" at the Sabarimala temple, which traditionally does not allow women aged between 10 and 51 to enter, the cruellest one is about an "elite feminist conspiracy" against the Hindu religion.
But I'm not surprised. The myth that Kerala - the southern Indian state where the temple is located - is a matrilineal society and that women here enjoy freedom and equal rights has been a persistent one.
This myth has continued to circulate despite a rising mountain of evidence against that rosy picture.
There is excellent research that reveals yawning gender gaps in non-conventional indicators of development such as the freedom from domestic and sexual violence, access to independent sources of income, and mental wellness.
For instance, studies show that while education levels have risen in Kerala, domestic violence and demand for dowry have risen alongside that as well. It is also worth noting that only 24.8% of Kerala's women are a part of its workforce. This is despite Kerala having the highest levels of female literacy in India - 92%.
As someone who lives in Kerala, I can vouch that misogyny here is just as toxic as anywhere else in India. The fact that numerically, feminists are relatively few, are nowhere close to power in the state and are constantly under attack is quite well-known.
But critics often cherry-pick facts to suit their arguments. In fact, they have even put out privileged spokeswomen on local television to make their arguments sound more convincing.
However the double-standard here is blatant. In this debate, feminists in Kerala and elsewhere who have publicly supported the court verdict have been told they are too "elite" to do so and that their concerns are ultimately too cosmopolitan to represent marginalised women and devotees.
But these spokeswomen, who enjoy immense power and privilege themselves, are somehow seen as having more in common with the local women in Kerala.
But all feminists - elite or not - should oppose the belief that women must be barred from the Sabarimala temple to protect the deity's "celibacy". The claim that the presence of women would invoke the "sexual energy" of male devotees has been made by critics quite publicly.
But isn't the reasoning employed here very similar to the one used to victim-shame survivors of rape and sexual harassment - that their attire or their presence provoked their attacker?
If such a belief is being peddled as tradition, it's important for everyone in a democratic society to strongly oppose it.
What is worth questioning is why is this particular custom is being defended while so many other regressive practices have been done away with by social reform movements in the early 20th century?
And ultimately, the argument that many women are rallying behind the "tradition" and faith is a classic fallacy.
Never in history did a cause turn virtuous simply because an enormous mob engaged in public display of violence in its defence; neither is there reason to think that a mob full of women is less of a mob. If we look back at the suffrage movement, it may seem striking and surprising now to read about the associations of women who opposed the right to vote in America.
India's Supreme Court has, in recent months, dismantled several regressive colonial-era laws, including repealing a 157-year-old act that criminalised gay sex. In reference to Sabarimala, the same court has raised an important question: If God doesn't discriminate between men and women, why should discrimination exist in temples?
In overturning this ban, the court made clear in its judgement that "the right to practice religion is available to both men and women".
If India's Supreme Court is convinced, why aren't we?
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An opposition coalition won an overwhelming victory in Venezuela's legislative election on 6 December. For the first time in more than 16 years, it will control Congress. The newly elected lawmakers take up their seats on 5 January. What changes are likely to be brought about by this new National Assembly? | Who is in control?
Venezuela has a presidential political system. The president is the head of the executive.
The National Assembly is the legislative branch. It consists of just one chamber with 167 members.
President Nicolas Maduro was elected in April 2013 to a six-year term.
Up until 5 January 2016, his party, the socialist PSUV, had a majority in the National Assembly, allowing him to pass laws smoothly and even allowing him to govern temporarily by executive decree.
President Maduro will now face a National Assembly in which the opposition MUD coalition is in the majority.
Venezuelan politics have hitherto been highly polarised and the opposition could hold up much of President Maduro's legislation.
The likely result is going to be a power struggle between the executive and the legislative.
How much power does the National Assembly have?
The National Assembly can pass most laws with a simple majority (50% of the lawmakers plus one).
Under Venezuela's constitution, the president only has limited powers to veto laws.
The president can send laws back to the National Assembly, but the latter can override the veto with an absolute majority (half of those present at the time of the vote plus one).
With a three-fifths majority, lawmakers can give the president the power to govern by decree, sack the vice-president and ministers and hire and fire members of the country's National Electoral Council.
With a two-thirds majority, the National Assembly can remove judges from the Supreme Court and create a constituent assembly with a view to rewriting the constitution.
How strong is the opposition?
The opposition MUD coalition won 112 seats in the elections on 6 December.
That gives them a two-thirds majority, also called supermajority.
However, since the election, the Supreme Court has suspended the inauguration of four lawmakers while it investigates allegations of electoral irregularities.
Three of them are members of the MUD opposition coalition, the fourth is a member of President Maduro's PSUV party.
Fifty-four pro-government and 109 opposition Assembly members were sworn in at the inaugural ceremony on 5 January.
A day later, the opposition defied the Supreme Court order and swore in its three barred lawmakers.
The former speaker of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, said he would lodge a complaint with the country's top court.
What changes does the opposition want to make?
Opposition lawmakers said they would seek the release of dozens of politicians and activists jailed under President Maduro.
Mr Maduro said he would veto any amnesty law, setting the scene for the first clash between the executive and the legislative branches.
The opposition also said it would demand that the Central Bank release key data such as inflation figures but this move seems to have been thwarted by a last-minute change to the law made by President Maduro a day before his decree powers expired.
If it keeps its supermajority, it could replace prosecutors and judges, but this is likely to take time.
What about the economy?
Venezuela's economy is in dire straits, suffering from skyrocketing inflation, shortages of some basic goods and dwindling revenue from oil.
Opposition lawmakers have promised reforms but without access to key economic data, depleted state coffers and an executive with an iron grip on the finances it is hard to see how it can make sweeping changes quickly.
One of Venezuela's main problems is its almost exclusive reliance on oil, the price of which has fallen sharply.
Diversifying its production would be key to its recovery as global oil prices remain low, however this would not be a speedy endeavour in a country which has focussed almost exclusively on its oil production for decades.
The opposition says Venezuela's problems have been further exacerbated by government mismanagement.
But replacing personnel in state-run companies such as oil giant PdVSA would take time and likely encounter opposition from the executive.
Many Venezuelans said they were prompted to vote for the opposition because of the shortages and endless queues they have to brave to get some basic goods.
But lifting price controls, which many people say are to blame for the shortages, could turn poorer Venezuelans against their newly elected lawmakers.
A reform of its strict currency controls would also be unlikely to be immediate.
Will President Maduro remain in power?
President Maduro's term runs until April 2019.
However, once he is halfway into his term, from April 2016 onwards, a recall referendum could be held.
Four million signatures are needed to trigger it and some opposition members have already threatened to seek such a referendum.
President Maduro's predecessor in office, Hugo Chavez, won a recall referendum in 2004, but Mr Maduro's popularity has never been as high as that of his mentor.
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On 25 August 1939, five people died and 70 were injured when an IRA bomb exploded in Coventry city centre. Yet 75 years after the explosion, the devastating attack has been all but forgotten. BBC News Online asks why. | By Jenny ScottBBC News Online
It is easy to picture Elsie Ansell weaving her way through the Coventry crowds, her footsteps buoyant, her future full of promise.
Elsie, 21, a shop assistant at Millets, was due to be married in a fortnight's time to Harry Davies, a local man.
Friday was market day in Coventry and Broadgate, the main shopping street, thronged with shoppers and workers.
Elsie paused, just for a second, to gaze into a jewellery shop window.
In that second, the hands of an alarm clock, placed in the carrier basket of a bicycle which was resting on the kerb behind Elsie, moved to 14:32 BST and a 5lb (2.3kg) bomb exploded, shattering shop windows and lives.
"For some time, Broadgate resembled a miniature battlefield," the Midland Telegraph reported.
Elsie was killed instantly. The young girl, whose life had seemed destined for such happiness, was identifiable only by her engagement ring.
She was later buried in the church where she was due to be a bride - one of five victims of the explosion.
"He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Marie Jones, from Andover, the niece of one of the other victims, Rex Gentle.
Rex, 30, was an identical twin from Newtown in Wales.
Like Elsie, Rex was engaged. He planned to marry a girl called May from his hometown.
He was doing holiday relief work at W.H. Smith and had only been in Coventry for a fortnight.
"He loved a laugh and a joke and was known for his willingness to help other people," said Mrs Jones.
'Deal with the devil'
Police investigations revealed the bomb had been planted by the IRA as part of what is now a largely-forgotten campaign of attacks on English cities known as the S Plan.
Dr David O'Donoghue who has written a book - The Devil's Deal - about the campaign said: "The S stood for sabotage. The campaign started in 1939 and petered out in March 1940.
"The official objective was to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland."
However, Dr O'Donoghue believes the real motivation was to put on a "public display" to Nazi Germany about the IRA's capabilities.
The Coventry bombing took place just nine days before the outbreak of World War Two and the IRA attacks on cities including Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford, Liverpool and London, continued until March 1940.
"This predated the discovery of concentration camps and other Nazi horrors," Dr O'Donoghue said. "The IRA would have done a deal with the devil to get a united Ireland."
Five people died in the explosion:
Elsie Ansell, 21, who was walking back from her lunch break.
John Arnott, 15, was the youngest victim. He had worked for W.H. Smith since leaving school. Newspaper reports described him as, "a curly-headed lad who wore glasses and must have served thousands of Coventry people with their papers and magazines". "He was full of life and well thought of by everyone that met him," said Jane Bant, his niece.
Rex Gentle, 30, was an identical twin from Newtown in Wales.
James Clay, 82, was a widower and grandfather. Newspapers said he was "well-known to an older generation of Coventry people" and "possessed the physical and mental energy of a man 20 years younger". A former printer, Mr Clay is described as a "deep reader, a great raconteur and a lover of Coventry, where he was born". He was a former president of the Coventry and District Co-Operative Society who described him as the "Peter Pan of the Midlands". He had been having lunch with a friend at a nearby cafe but had left earlier than usual, saying he felt unwell. Newspaper reports said: "It was the first time in six years Mr Clay [and his friend] had not left the cafe together."
Gwilym Rowlands, 50, known as "Bill", was a road sweeper who was working on the pavement outside the shop where the bomb exploded. He was identified a few hours later in the mortuary by his wife, Mary Ann.
Ted Cross, now 92, was the first ambulance driver on the scene.
"The glass had been sucked out of all the windows and there were a great many casualties," he said.
"The first gentleman I reached had terrible stomach injuries. I think the hub of the bike had blown into him. We took him to hospital but unfortunately he died shortly afterwards."
Passer-by Robert Kinsella was thrown to the ground in the explosion. "I could see there had been terrible damage done," he said.
"There were a lot of people lying about on the ground. The first person I went to was, I believe, old James Clay, whom I picked up. I could see from his injuries he was almost dead."
About 70 people were injured - some of them seriously.
Sheila Howe's friend from school Muriel Timms, 14, had an operation to remove a piece of steel implanted in her leg.
"She never walked again without a limp," she said. "It was an awful thing for her.
"She died when she was in her early 80s but the experience cast a dark shadow over her life."
The bombers
The man who claimed to have planted the bomb - Joby O'Sullivan, from Cork - was never caught.
Mike Burns, an Irish journalist who interviewed O'Sullivan in 1969, said he had told him the fact the bomb was left on a busy shopping street was "a total accident".
"The intention was to bomb the police station but the bicycle wheels kept getting stuck in the tram tracks so he abandoned it and took off," he said.
"He said he wasn't caught because the cops were expecting him to head straight for the ferry at Holyhead. He took the train to London, dumped his clothes and hung around there for a few days until everything died down."
Instead two other men, Peter Barnes and James McCormick - under the name James Richards - both from County Offaly, were convicted for the bombing and sentenced to death.
McCormick had bought the bike from Halfords and stored the explosives at a house on Clara Street where he lodged.
Barnes brought the explosives to Coventry by train.
During his trial in Birmingham, McCormick insisted his orders were "not to endanger life".
According to criminologist Steve Fielding, whose book Hanged at Birmingham covers the case, the two men were treated as martyrs in Ireland following their executions.
"Their bodies were exhumed and reburied in Ireland," he said.
Initially, Coventry's considerable Irish community found itself under siege.
"Widespread feeling against Irishmen in Coventry - the vast majority of them entirely innocent of any sympathy with the IRA - has been aroused," the Midland Daily Telegraph reported.
"Such is the feeling Friday's tragic incident has kindled that many Irishmen in lodgings were faced with requests they should obtain accommodation elsewhere."
There were also threats of strike action if factory owners did not consent to an immediate withdrawal of Irish labour.
Even Coventry's chief constable had to issue a denial he was Irish. "I am a perfectly good Somerset man," he said.
But within days the attack had disappeared from the front pages of Coventry newspapers, replaced with the ominous rise of Hitler and by 3 September Britain was at war.
In 1940 much of Coventry's centre was destroyed by the ravages of the Blitz. Even the site of the IRA explosion became unrecognisable, as many of Broadgate's buildings were destroyed.
Today it is even difficult to work out where the bomb went off and there is no memorial to the victims.
Historian Simon Shaw, who has meticulously studied the attack, said many people do not realise there was a pre-World War Two IRA campaign.
"I get the impression a memorial may previously have been considered contentious but with the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland, I'm sure that wouldn't apply today," he said.
The victims are only remembered by their families.
Marie Jones, daughter of victim Rex Gentle's twin brother, said the story of the Coventry bombings is "something she has grown up with".
"It brings tears to my eyes and I never knew him," she said.
"But nobody in Coventry remembers the attack now. I would just like to see their names somewhere in the city."
"It's one of the worst atrocities there has ever been in Coventry and yet nobody remembers it," added Jane Bant, niece of John Arnott, the teenager who died in the attack. "I think there should be a memorial."
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A man has been arrested over a fatal stabbing in Birmingham. | Bashir Mohamed, 26, was found critically injured in Shyltons Croft, Ladywood, just before 04:20 BST on Thursday and pronounced dead at the scene.
A post-mortem examination found the victim, from Erdington, died from a stab wound to his arm.
An 18-year-old man was arrested at an address in Highgate on Friday morning on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.
Det Ch Insp Stu Mobberley, from West Midlands Police, said: "It's clear from our initial investigations that this is a complex case.
"Our enquiries are continuing at pace and we now have a good understanding of what we believe led up to the man's death."
The force said it was still appealing for witnesses or anyone with information about the killing to get in touch.
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The City of Derry Airport has been closed after severe flooding hit the north west of Northern Ireland. | Heavy rain fell on Tuesday night, resulting in torrents of water entering the building.
All flights in and out of the airport have been cancelled and passengers have been advised to stay away.
Check in desks are likely to re-open at 13:00 BST on Thursday. Customers should contact their airline directly for advice.
A spokesperson for Derry City and Strabane Council apologised for the inconvenience caused.
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"When I think of Windrush now, I don't think of people standing smiling on a boat happy to arrive," says musician GAIKA , whose parents moved to the UK from Grenada and Jamaica in the 1960s. | By Hannah MooreNewsbeat reporter
"I think of a scandal of betrayal and a hostile environment."
Across the UK on 22 June, people of Caribbean descent will be celebrating Windrush Day.
It marks the anniversary of HMT Windrush arriving in Tilbury Docks, Essex, bringing the first Jamaican immigrants to Britain after World War Two.
To lots of people, it symbolises positivity - the beginning of Britain becoming more multicultural. But recently it has become of symbol of pain too.
The Windrush scandal - in which Caribbean people have been deported or detained by the British government - has for Gaika confirmed things he says he "already knew".
"My work deals with alienation, the alienation that we feel in being from somewhere but not really from there. I think the Windrush scandal kind of solidified that feeling.
"It's like 'Oh wait a minute, you're going to deport my grandma because she didn't have exactly the right papers after she's worked here for however many years?'"
Much of the Brixton musician's album Basic Volume is inspired by his dad's experience of trying to "fit in" when he first arrived in London.
"My dad told a lot of stories about how he felt when he got here. He never really felt like he belonged, because he arrived from Jamaica when he was relatively old, like 16.
"He felt the pressure to be a 'good immigrant' and the pressure that if you haven't 'made it' financially then you're not anybody."
Charlton Phillip Tavares measurably did "make it" - working as a material scientist, and in his spare time amassing an enviable record collection.
And his Jamaican musical roots helped inspire the tracks his son makes today, which underpin the catchy shouts and drum loops of dancehall with foreboding, rumbling basslines.
That sound - which has won him fans including Radio 1's Benji B and 1Xtra's Jamz Supernova - isn't simple to define.
Perhaps that's why his music often gets described in the media as "alien".
It's not a definition GAIKA rejects, saying that as a second-generation Caribbean person, he has always felt slightly apart from mainstream British culture.
His video installation SYSTEM, first shown at Somerset House in London last year, used footage from Notting Hill Carnival, the UK's biggest Caribbean street parade, to reflect his "outsider" status.
"For me, carnival is inspirational because it's this mass gathering of people just like me, who've been designated 'alien'.
"It's a celebration of a unique culture. To me that's political.
"It's about holding a space where it says 'We're not going to run, we're just going to play this music really loudly and we're going to celebrate our culture so it can't be destroyed'."
GAIKA is currently showing a new video as part of Get Up Stand Up Now, an exhibition of more than 100 black artists, also at Somerset House.
By temporarily owning that space, something black artists aren't often able to do, GAIKA says that he and his fellow artists are making a political statement.
It takes him back to the Windrush scandal.
"It's only when we can create our own spaces that the pain in something like the Windrush scandal can become some way assuaged.
"That will go hand in hand with black British people feeling a little bit more British because, right now, I'm not sure that we do."
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There's alignment between Downing Street's and Holyrood's approach to tightened infection controls, but also significant differences, including tone and motivation.
While economic constraints are minimised, for now, the sectors worst affected, including pubs and restaurants, are crying out for a renewed surge of support funding, but hearing nothing from the Prime Minister.
Getting the message of risk across to the public carries a risk of further dampening consumer confidence, to go out and spend, and to travel. | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
The first minister has gone further than the prime minister on restricting household visits. That's a tough message socially, but it's got a low financial cost.
Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs she might have reached a different position on curtailing business activity if she had the borrowing powers to offer different mitigating measures for the economy, businesses and workers.
But without that, and for now, suppression is focusing on social interaction. The tightening of economic constraints are less severe and more closely aligned with UK policy.
That's not to say they are cost-free. Keeping office workers at home will continue to deprive city centres of shoppers, diners and drinkers.
More broadly, consumer confidence won't be helped by the stern warnings of infection risk. The risk message is necessary to keep people alert, but it also dampens the desire to go out and spend.
Performing arts, sports and events are having to reset their expectations of when they can open up again, and it looks a long way off. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra today launched its winter season, and it's entirely digital.
'Catastrophic'
The travel industry was already despairing, but the first minister has never been so blunt on foreign travel: don't do it this October break, she said.
So who is going to risk a winter getaway, with resurgent infections overseas, a bug that likes the cold, and quarantine risk when you get home again? Alpine ski-ing anyone?
The Scottish Passenger Agents Association responded that the FM's comments were "unnecessary, gratuitous and extremely damaging" as it heads towards the end of a "catastrophic" year.
Pubs and restaurants will be hit hard by having less drinking time, as bars lock up no later than 10pm. Those rules will be enforced more rigorously, we're told.
(Scots aged over 60 will recall a standard 10pm closing time meant a rapid swill in the closing half hour, which was not good for health, or the mood on the pavement outside as people had to leave.)
'Arms around people'
But in the near term, the question for business is what support they can expect. While the political pressure is for furlough, the shopping list of tax cuts is getting longer; another year of business rates holiday for retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism: another quarter with VAT bills postponed: help to delay debt repayment: cuts in employers' National Insurance Contributions.
But Boris Johnson has been refusing to say anything specific on the next phase of funding.
Without his Downing Street neighbour, Rishi Sunak, going back to to the money markets to borrow lots more for grants and furlough payments, that makes it hard-to-impossible for many businesses to absorb six more months of losses, or no revenue at all.
Even when the Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross urged the PM to give more support, Mr Johnson turned to the figures in his briefing on finances already provided to Scotland by the Treasury, along with a general pledge to support people in future. The government will "throw its arms around people".
Flexible furlough
Will that be enough? With pressure rising from business, unions, opposition and increasingly sharp challenges from the PM's own side, attention will focus even more on finding a successor to the furlough scheme.
It has been successful in keeping people out of unemployment, even when there's no work for them to do - but at quite a cost. New figures published by the Treasury on Tuesday show it has cost £39.3bn, up by £4bn in a month.
It has worked also in its more flexible form, with employers able to re-engage workers on a part-time basis, with part-time furlough pay. In its first month, July, there were 367,000 Scots furloughed, and 78,000 of them were on the flexible version.
That came with new UK figures on the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, which had less success in reaching those in need of help. The first wave, to the end of July, paid out up to £7,500, and cost the Treasury £7.8bn for 2.7m recipients. The second pulse, of reverse tax payments through HMRC, came to £5.6bn, for 2.2m people.
Mind games
Another point where virus suppression meets economics is in psychology. The experts are feeding their judgements to political leaders on which messages work best in persuading people to change their behaviour or simply "dae as their tellt".
That was evident in different messaging from the prime minister than the first minister on how long we should expect these renewed restrictions to be applied. Ms Sturgeon emphasised a three-weekly review. Mr Johnson is softening us up for about six months.
My hunch is that they have the same time-frame in mind. The Scottish approach seems to be to keep people on board and supportive for short periods, which get rolled over, while keeping the public's attention focused.
That assumes six months is too long for many to contemplate and stay supportive - particularly as those six months take us through winter, Christmas and New Year.
Softer tone
The other significant difference in tone, which has been emerging over recent days, is whether to use the carrot or the stick.
Those who see others breaking the rules, and who blame young people for spreading virus, are likely to want to see a punitive response. The British see themselves as having a sense of fair play: if they're to give up their liberties, they really resent those who fail to play by those rules. That approach was most evident from the prime minister today and by others in recent days.
There's a subtle contrast with the message from Holyrood, which takes a softer tone. The toughest talk from Nicola Sturgeon on Tuesday was about enforcing 10pm closure and distancing rules in bars and restaurants. They have licences and face health inspectors, so the stick can be more easily applied.
But for the wider public, the Holyrood carrot is held out as a sense of common endeavour: we owe it to each other, particularly the vulnerable: let's look after one another.
That emphasises solidarity with the majority who obey the rules, rather than highlighting resentment at the minority who do not. We'll find out this winter which approach works better.
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Once it was Chechnya, today it is the republic of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea that is the most explosive place in Russia - and in Europe. There are bomb attacks almost daily, shootouts between police and militants, tales of torture and of people going missing. | By Lucy AshBBC News, Makhachkala
Two armed men in camouflage holding Kalashnikov rifles enter the shop and tell the customers to leave. The terrified cashier stumbles past as one of the men puts a bomb on the counter and sets the timer.
He does not bother emptying the till, he just walks out of the door.
Seconds later, the shop is filled with smoke.
Attacks like this one caught on supermarket security cameras - in which Islamic fighters punish shops that sell alcohol - have become routine events in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala.
The owners typically get a warning first, often delivered by text message, or on a USB memory stick thrown through car windows, or into a letterbox.
If they ignore it, there may be a bomb or a shootout or the owners may agree to pay protection money.
"The fighters like to portray themselves as so devout," says a lieutenant colonel in the anti-terrorism police, who I will call Bashir.
"But many are just cynical criminals running protection rackets."
I met Bashir at a football match, watching the Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto'o - reportedly the world's best-paid footballer - play for Anzhi Makhachkala.
The atmosphere inside the stadium was relaxed, even joyful, with old men munching sunflower seeds and children waving flags, despite the heavy security outside.
After the game, a smiling Eto'o told me he was proud to play in Dagestan - but he does not spend much time here, heading straight back to the safety of Moscow after every match.
Puritanism
In the centre of Makhachkala, there are armed police on almost every corner.
Bashir drives me past a place where two car bombs recently killed a policeman and a young girl and wounded 60 police and passers-by.
"When our guys rushed to the scene of the first explosion, a blast about 12 times more powerful went off," he adds.
"It was a trap. They wanted to get as many of us as possible."
He asks me not to use his real name, or to photograph his face. Government officials and policemen are the main targets of the increasingly ruthless Islamic insurgents.
Many officers are too scared to go on to the street in their uniform. Police who have to stop and search cars often wear masks.
But unlike some of his colleagues, Bashir seems to want to understand why so many young Dagestanis have joined the rebels and gone into hiding - known here as "going into the forest".
At the university, I watch him lecture students about the dangers of fundamentalist websites. He tells them a cautionary tale about a young medical student who made some so-called friends online, and who later forced him to plant a car bomb.
Bashir is joined by an imam, who urges moderation and compliance with Russian law. "If a man only gets secular education he will be heartless - if he only gets religious education he'll be a fanatic," the imam says.
Most Muslims in Dagestan are Sufi but younger people are increasingly drawn to the Salafi branch of Islam, which is less mystical, more puritanical and, crucially, outside the control of the state.
This is seen by the interior ministry as a problem, as I discover in the village of Sovietskoye, three hours south of Makhachkala.
Murder
Said Gereikhanov, the young imam at the village mosque, tells me about a day last May, when dozens of Salafi mosque-goers were detained and beaten by police.
Plain-clothed security officers burst into the mosque in muddy boots, during Friday prayers, and told everyone to leave, he says. Outside, they found themselves surrounded by masked men with guns, and the whole congregation of 150 people, including 15 school boys, was taken to a police station in a neighbouring town.
Police then summoned the headmaster of the village secondary school, Sadikullah Akhmedov. Said says he was shocked by the brutal treatment of the teenagers - and by Mr Akhmedov's failure to intercede on their behalf.
He shows me photographs of bruised bodies and young men with half of their beards shaved off.
On the night of 9 July, two months after the arrests at the mosque, there was a more serious incident - one which sent shock waves through Russia. Mr Akhmedov was gunned down in his own sitting room by unknown assailants.
At the school nobody is keen to talk about it. The headmaster's distraught widow, Djeramat, tells me she has no idea why her husband was killed.
But Said, the imam, says Mr Akhmedov banned the hijab in school and treated girls wearing them as if they "were armed with weapons".
Said believes only the radical fighters could be responsible. He adds wearily: "You can't deliver justice through murders. They just make things worse. This war has already been going on for 20 years."
Persuasion
Like Bashir, Rizvan Kurbanov, Dagestan's deputy premier and the man in charge of police and security, is keen to reach out to disaffected youth.
Clutching his iPad, Mr Kurbanov shows me his Facebook account. He says when more than 20 terrorist internet sites are putting pressure on Dagestan, the government has to reclaim cyberspace and use social networks to stop young people from being seduced by online jihadists.
"No place on earth is safe from terrorism. Today the Caucasus, Dagestan included, is of heightened interest to terrorist organisations and they try to spread unrest here," he says.
An energetic man with a mop of grey hair, he chairs a new commission to persuade fighters to lay down their arms and go back to their families.
"The commission is like a bridge between a person who's lost his way, who's been duped and is in the woods, and society. He can walk across this bridge, say I've done this and that, please forgive me."
This feels like a new approach in the North Caucasus where strong-hand tactics and repression have long been the rule, with the full backing of the Kremlin.
In neighbouring Chechnya, forces loyal to President Ramzan Kadyrov have been accused of burning down the houses of suspected militants, leaving their families homeless.
Mr Kurbanov, on the other hand, urges parents to track down wayward sons and bring them round a table where they can appeal for clemency.
So far though the commission has only dealt with minor figures in the insurgency and government's leniency only goes so far, Mr Kurbanov says.
"Those who don't understand, the ones I call non-people - because like animals they just crave blood and want to fight - they will be dealt with briefly by the necessary power agencies."
You can hear Lucy Ash's full report on Dagestan in Crossing Continents on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 24 November at 11:00 GMT and again on Monday 28 November at 20:30 GMT. You can also watch her film on Dagestan on Newsnight on BBC2 on Thursday 24 November at 22:30 GMT.
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This week, the BBC showed scammers at work in an Indian call centre, recorded by an activist who hacked into the company's security cameras. Staff were seen laughing at their victims in the US and the UK. But who are these scammers, and how do they justify their actions? | By Rajini VaidyanathanBBC News, Delhi
Behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, Piyush is telling me how he made a quarter of a million dollars.
"It was easy money," he says, detailing how he bought fancy cars and wore designer clothes.
From a modest background, Piyush made a fortune by defrauding innocent victims at the other end of a phone.
"To become a rock star we have to do something," he says.
"Become a thief?" I ask.
"Right," he replies coolly.
Piyush meets me in a friend's apartment, in one of Delhi's richest neighbourhoods. The group of young men I've come to talk to all have one thing in common - they've worked in India's scam call-centre industry.
The country is well-known for outsourcing jobs from Western countries to legitimate call centres, but there's also a thriving dark side.
For nine years after leaving college, Piyush was part of it. "I wasn't getting a job anywhere else and the money and the incentives were good," he says.
The company Piyush worked for ran what is known as a "tech support scam". It would send a pop-up to people's screens, telling them their computer had been infected by a "pornographic virus" or other malware, and giving them a helpline number to call.
As panicking customers rang in, Piyush and his colleagues would milk them for money, to fix a problem that didn't actually exist.
Piyush tells me that tricking people is an "art".
"We used to target the old people," he says.
"There are many old people in the US who don't have families, are alone and are disabled, so it's very easy to trick them."
I look at this man sitting opposite me in his baggy jeans and hipster T-shirt and wonder how he could be so cold-hearted. How would he feel if his own grandparents were victims of scamming, I ask?
"Yeah, I will feel bad," he says. "I did it because I needed money and that's it."
Piyush tells me how once he forced a woman to hand over her last $100, just so he could meet a target. For her, on the other side of the world, it was Christmas. "I took that $100 and she cried a lot while making the payment. Yeah, this was the worst call I ever had," he says.
Spying on the scammers
Campaigner Jim Browning hacked into a Delhi call centre run by Amit Chauhan and recorded this video:
Readers in the UK can click here to watch Rajini Vaidyanathan's Panorama documentary
The call centre featured in the programme was raided by a police a few days later - Amit Chauhan, is now in custody
Piyush went on to set up his own call centre. He tells me it was easy. He rented office space and told the landlord he was starting a marketing firm. His staff worked late hours due to the time difference with the US, so there were few other people around to ask questions about what they were up to.
As the boss, Piyush was constantly thinking of new ways to con customers out of cash. He drew up a script for another fraudulent scheme, known as the IRS scam, which involved cold-calling people in the US and telling them they'd get a tax refund of thousands if they first handed over $184.
"We used to tell them that the police will go to their house and arrest them if they didn't pay!" he says.
When he started out, Piyush was paid one rupee for every dollar he made in sales. So for a $100 dollar scam, he'd only get $1.25 (£1).
But once he became the boss the money flooded in. Some "lucky months" he took home $50,000 (£40,000).
Another ex-scammer, Sam, got into the business unintentionally.
Unemployment in India is now higher than it has been for decades, so when Sam was looking for his first job he thanked a friend for telling him about a place he could earn good money without working too hard.
At the interview he was told it was a sales job, pitching products to customers in the USA.
It was only while he was being trained in how to talk to customers that he realised what he was getting into.
"After a month, when we actually made it to the floor, when we were supposed to go live, that's when we figured out the entire thing was a scam," he tells me.
By that point Sam felt it was too late to back out.
"I was making more money than an MBA graduate and I don't have a college degree," he remembers.
"I used to drink a lot, party a lot, what are you going to do with all that money when you literally you don't have any future plans?"
Like some other scammers I've talked to, Sam wrestled with his conscience but told himself he was only targeting the wealthy.
"I just had to be sure that the customers weren't handing me the money for their food… so I always used to pitch to the big guys who can afford it," he says.
He could work someone's income out, he says, from "the way they talk, the sort of things they have on their computer".
"Is it OK to steal from people if you think they can afford it," I ask?
"Yeah," he replies confidently.
Sam says he's still in touch with some of the people he decided were too poor to be scammed, including a mother of three who worked in a fast food restaurant in the US.
He now helps her with any computer issues she might have, and is on her Christmas card list.
Sam says his high salary won him respect from his father, whom he no longer had to rely on for cash.
As we talk, he leans over and shows me the watch on his wrist, worth about $400. It was a gift from his boss for meeting his targets.
But his father - and friends - didn't know how he had come into such wealth. "When they asked what I did, I told them I worked for an IT company as a salesman," he says.
Six months into the job, the call centre Sam worked at was raided by the police and was forced to shut down. Sam escaped arrest and within days secured employment in another similar business.
His bosses were detained for less than a day and he believes they just restarted the business under a different name. It's easy for such companies to operate under the radar, he tells me, which is why they continue to do so.
Sam now has a job with a reputable tech company and has long left the world of scamming. He says he decided to talk to me openly to appeal to others like him to pursue legal jobs, which offer better prospects in the long term - and where you don't run the risk of arrest.
Unlike Sam, Piyush didn't hide his job from his family.
"I told them everything. They knew I was earning a lot and were pleased," he says.
As I glance down at his jeans, I can see a patch stitched on, with the words "take every chance".
But after close to a decade of scamming he too quit, in fear of police crackdowns. He feels lucky he never got caught, and now regrets his actions.
"I felt good at the time," he says. "In hindsight it doesn't feel as good."
Piyush used his earnings to set up other legal businesses - but ended up losing it all.
"After that it didn't go right," he says.
"So, I would say it was karma."
Piyush and Sam are pseudonyms
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The childhood home of former Beatle George Harrison has sold at an auction at the Cavern Club for £156,000. | Harrison was six years old in 1949 when he moved into 25 Upton Green in Speke, Liverpool, with his parents.
The three-bedroom mid-terrace home was where The Quarrymen held some of their first rehearsals before the band evolved into the Beatles in 1960.
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Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom are in the final round of the contest to succeed David Cameron as Conservative Party leader and prime minister. | Here's a guide to how the contest will unfold.
The candidates: Home Secretary Theresa May and energy minister Andrea Leadsom
Key dates: Ballot papers will be sent out to the party membership mid August. Voting closes at noon on Friday 9 September.
Events: Hustings will take place across the UK. Dates to be announced
Who can vote? "Qualifying party members" of more than three months' standing can vote. In practice, anyone who joined the party by 9 June
The voting system? Members vote for their preferred candidate. They can do so by postal ballot or online. Votes will be counted electronically.
Who is the electorate?
By Tom Bateman, BBC political correspondent
The size of the current Conservative Party membership is not clear - the number is thought to range between 130,000 and 150,000.
The most recent study of Tory membership was carried out by Professor Tim Bale and his colleagues after the 2015 general election as part of the Party Members Project by the Economic and Social Research Council.
The survey of 1,200 Conservative party members provides a useful insight into the people who will choose the next prime minister.
It suggests more than half of party members are over the age of 60, they are overwhelmingly middle class and they are disproportionately based in London and the South East of England (55% of the membership).
Just over a third have been to university - a lower number than is the case for Labour where about half are graduates.
Fewer than 5% read the Sun, compared with 17% who buy the Daily Mail and 33% who take the Daily Telegraph.
The majority are likely to agree with the view that young people today don't have enough respect for traditional British values, that schools should teach children to obey authority and that people who break the law should be given stiffer sentences.
But many stereotypes about the famous "blue-rinse brigade" simply don't hold, according to Professor Bale.
Britain's next female prime minister will be chosen by an electorate that is disproportionately male (70% of members).
They are not "gung ho, slash-and-burn neo-liberals". This large number of retirees is concerned about protecting the NHS and pensions.
But there is a tried and tested rule about leadership elections: Conservative Party members love winners.
Read more
Leadership election timetable and process
The party's 1922 committee of backbench MPs is overseeing the contest, and it has set a spending limit of £135,000 per candidate. Here's a timeline of events:
Thursday 30 June: Nominations to get on the ballot paper closed at midday, with candidates needing at least two MPs' support. Theresa May, Michael Gove, Stephen Crabb, Andrea Leadsom and Liam Fox are in the running.
Tuesday 5 July: The first of two secret ballots of Conservative MPs is held as part of a process to whittle the field down to two. Liam Fox came last and was eliminated. Stephen Crabb came fourth and dropped out. Both gave their backing to Theresa May.
Thursday 7 July: With just three candidates remaining - Theresa May, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove - MPs vote to decide which two should go forward to the final vote of party members. Michael Gove comes last and is eliminated.
Summer: Hustings will take place across the UK, as the leadership hopefuls vie for support
9 September: Voting by the party membership closes at midday. The new Conservative leader and prime minister will be announced.
Theresa May
One of the longest-serving home secretaries in history, Mrs May - who turns 60 later this year - has long been mentioned as a potential future leader of the party.
She is now seen as the frontrunner, having won the support of 165 MPs in the first ballot - more than all the other candidates combined - and 199 in the second round.
She said she had won support from MPs "across the party", including those on the Remain and Leave side.
Mrs May is regarded as one of Whitehall's toughest and shrewdest operators and is being touted by her supporters as the candidate with the experience and know-how needed to deal with the fallout from the vote to leave the EU.
She entered Parliament in 1997 and in the fallow years after the Conservatives' 1997 landslide defeat, achieved notoriety by famously saying the Conservatives were referred to by some as the "nasty party".
The MP, who revealed in 2013 that she has type 1 diabetes, was praised for her unflappable handling of the often problematic Home Office brief although her wider political appeal has yet to be tested.
While coming out for Remain during the EU referendum, Mrs May maintained a relatively low profile during the campaign, enhancing her potential appeal to MPs on the other side of the debate.
Where she stands on Brexit: Backed Remain campaign but says vote to come out must be respected: "Brexit means Brexit... There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum." Mrs May also said there should be no general election before 2020 and no "emergency" Brexit budget - and that she would abandon the target of eliminating Britain's Budget deficit by the end of the decade, a day before the chancellor himself abandoned it.
Setting out her priorities for Brexit negotiations, she said "it must be a priority to allow British companies to trade with the single market in goods and services but also to regain more control of the numbers of people who are coming here from Europe". "Any attempt to wriggle out of that, especially from leadership candidates who campaigned to leave the EU by focusing on immigration, will be unacceptable to the public."
Andrea Leadsom
The 53-year-old former City banker was one of the stars of the Leave campaign, giving a composed performance as she took her place alongside Boris Johnson in its TV debating team.
A former district councillor, she became MP for South Northamptonshire in 2010 and - after serving as a junior Treasury minister and as a member of the Treasury select committee - she was made a junior minister in the energy and climate change department in May last year.
Announcing her decision to stand for the party leadership, she tweeted: "Let's make the most of the Brexit opportunities!"
Following Boris Johnson's exit from the race, her stock has risen hugely with many of Mr Johnson's supporters transferring their support to her, enabling her to come second in the first round of voting with 66 votes.
By the second round, she had picked up more support, securing second place with 84 votes, pushing Michael Gove out of the final contest.
But question marks have been levelled about her level of experience in her previous City career and as a minister, her position on the EU - she said in 2013 that leaving the EU would be a disaster - and her family's tax affairs. She has said she would publish her tax returns if she made the final two.
Where she stands on Brexit: She has described the referendum result as "a huge opportunity for our great country". She believes in scrapping free movement and wants to do free trade negotiations with the rest of the world.
Mrs Leadsom told Sky News: "My personal view very genuinely is the next leader is someone who has to deliver on the promise of the referendum because they can see the huge advantages and they believe in them. I think it's very difficult for somebody who campaigned to stay in, who thinks that there will be disaster if we leave to suddenly turn it around and start believing we can make a go of it."
Michael Gove - eliminated
The 48-year-old justice secretary has gone out of his way in the past to put a limit on his personal ambitions, even going so far as to suggest that he was not equipped to do the job of prime minister.
So it was a shock, verging on a political earthquake, when the former Times journalist and Leave campaigner abandoned his support for Boris Johnson and said he would stand for the leadership himself.
Mr Gove has spoken of his "burning desire" to change the country but many of Mr Johnson's supporters did not take kindly to his spurning of their man and Mr Gove could only finish third in the first ballot of MPs, securing 48 votes, and was ejected in the second and final round.
Mr Gove, who entered Parliament in 2005, has been a close personal friend of David Cameron and George Osborne and was a key figure in the party's modernisation but those relations are said to have been strained by his decision to campaign to leave the EU.
He subsequently became a reforming, if controversial, education secretary and is regarded as one of the party's intellectual heavyweights. He ruled out a snap general election if he became PM - and he said he would abandon Chancellor George Osborne's target of eliminating Britain's budget deficit by 2020. Mr Osborne himself has since abandoned the target.
Where he stands on Brexit: "The British people voted for change last Thursday... they want Britain to leave the European Union and end the supremacy of EU law. They told us to restore democratic control of immigration policy and to spend their money on national priorities such as health, education and science instead of giving it to Brussels. They rejected politics as usual and government as usual. They want and need a new approach to running this country."
He said he would wait until at least until 2017 to kick off the two-year process of negotiating the UK's withdrawal by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. "I will only trigger it after extensive preliminary talks ... so I have no expectation that Article 50 would be triggered in this calendar year," he said.
Stephen Crabb - pulled out
One of the rising stars of the Conservative Party, and the first Conservative cabinet minister for generations to sport a beard, the 43-year-old launched a leadership bid on a joint ticket with Business Secretary Sajid Javid.
However, the work and pensions secretary pulled out of the race after coming fourth in the first ballot, amassing 34 votes. He then signalled he would be supporting home secretary believing she was the candidate most capable of uniting the party and the country.
In his campaign, Mr Crabb who was born in Scotland, spoke of the need to bring the United Kingdom together following the referendum result, and said controlling immigration was "a red line" in Brexit negotiations.
Raised by a single mother on a council estate, Mr Crabb - who became an MP in 2005 - has spoken openly about his family's dependence on benefits and the importance of work, education and his Christian faith in promoting self-reliance and economic independence.
He was promoted to the cabinet in 2014 as Welsh secretary and later succeeded Iain Duncan Smith at work and pensions. While praising his qualities, many felt the opportunity came too early and his support for Britain to remain in the EU held him back.
Where he stands on Brexit: Campaigned for Remain but now says: "The result was for the UK to leave the European Union. There can be no stepping back from that. It's a clear instruction to the government. There can be no attempt to dilute it, to sidestep it. And there will be no second referendum."
Mr Crabb has set out three aims for the EU negotiations: "One: controlling immigration, and for us this is a red line. The one message that came through louder than any other in the vote last week is that the British people want to control immigration. Two: it is vital that we seek to achieve as close an economic relation with the EU as we have now. Three: the end of the supremacy of EU law."
Liam Fox - eliminated
The former defence secretary, 54, threw his hat into the ring for a second time after coming a close third in the 2005 leadership contest.
However, he was eliminated in the first round of voting after finishing bottom with 16 votes. He then said he would be transferring his support to home secretary Theresa May.
He has been a forceful voice for the UK leaving the EU on the backbenches but also for Conservative unity after the referendum.
His cabinet career was cut short in 2011 following a lobbying row, which led to his resignation. Mr Fox was found to have breached the ministerial code over his working relationship with his friend and self-styled adviser Adam Werrity
Where he stands on Brexit: "I do not believe there is room for membership of the single market if it entails free movement of people. Those who voted to leave the EU would regard it as a betrayal and frankly they would be right. We do not need to be part of the single market to sell into it. Countries like the United States manage to do that very well. It is in our mutual interests to have a free and open trade relationship with our European partners but we cannot accept the concept of free movement of people as its cost."
Who has ruled out a leadership bid?
Boris Johnson
The former mayor of London was immediately installed as the bookies' favourite to be the next occupant of Downing Street when David Cameron announced he was standing down.
But he shocked supporters and foes alike when he used an event at which he had been expected to announce his candidacy to say that he could not provide the leadership and unity required and would not be standing.
His withdrawal came hours after the last-minute entry into the race of Michael Gove, who had previously backed the mayor of London and was masterminding his campaign.
But Mr Gove said he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the 52-year-old journalist-turned-Conservative politician, one of the most familiar faces in British politics, was not up to the job of being prime minister.
Long thought to harbour ambitions to be prime minister, Mr Johnson has now said he is backing Andrea Leadsom.
George Osborne
The chancellor has said he will not enter the contest to succeed David Cameron as Conservative leader, saying he does not believe he is the right person to unite the party. He has also yet to indicate who he will support.
Many commentators believed Mr Cameron's right-hand man and political soulmate yearns to move the short distance to No 10 from 11 Downing Street - where the 45-year-old has spent the last six years as chancellor.
Although he has a strong power base in Parliament - so-called "friends of George" occupy many of the seats around the Cabinet table - his stock among backbenchers on the right of the party has never been so low and his fortunes have been closely entwined with Mr Cameron's.
His high-profile backing of the Remain cause, which culminated in his warning that there would have to be a tax-raising emergency Budget in the wake of a Brexit vote, meant he'd have had a long way to go to win back the Eurosceptic side of the party.
Jeremy Hunt
The health secretary, who joined Parliament in 2005 and is politically close to David Cameron, said he was "seriously considering" running for the leadership of the Conservative Party - but on the day nominations closed he announced he would be backing Theresa May's candidacy instead.
He said now was "not the right time" for him to stand, and added: "I have decided that now is not the right time for me to run for the leadership - though I remain completely committed to ensuring we secure our position as a great trading nation with sensible controls on migration.
"I believe that Theresa May has the strength, judgement and values to deliver those things. She is the right choice to lead Britain in a challenging period and will make a truly outstanding prime minister."
The 49-year-old has previously said he expected the health brief "to be my last big job in politics" but has since said: "I said it might be... things change in politics very, very rapidly.
Nicky Morgan
The education secretary said she was "actively considering" whether to throw her hat into the ring, saying it would "be good" to have a woman in the final two on the ballot paper - but she decided to throw her weight behind Michael Gove.
She said the next leader "must have the skill and credibility to put together the right team to renegotiate our exit from and future relationship with Europe and explain the final terms to the British people," adding that "the right person to do that is Michael Gove."
On the centre-left of the party, she was a strong supporter of the campaign to stay in the EU, saying the referendum result showed a "divided" country and said the Conservatives need to bring it back together.
She has also urged the party to make the "positive case" for immigration. And she said the Conservatives need to make "a big bold offer" to younger voters, many of whom are "disillusioned" by Brexit, and called for votes for 16 and 17-year-olds.
John Baron
Mr Baron, who represents Basildon and Billericay in Essex, said he had been asked to consider running for Tory leader and was taking soundings but was not among the official candidates when nominations closed.
The 57-year-old was instrumental in pushing the Conservative leadership into committing to the referendum, with a letter to the prime minister, signed by more than 100 MPs, followed by a rebel amendment to the 2013 Queen's Speech.
After studying at Cambridge University he joined the Army and later worked in the City of London.
Mr Baron is a former shadow health minister who resigned from the front bench in 2003 to vote against the Iraq War. He also voted against military intervention in Syria last year.
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When I was a cub reporter on my local newspaper in the late 1970s, I returned from the magistrates court with what I thought was a front page story. A councillor had appeared on charges of sexual assault on young girls, an alleged abuse of power that had left me shocked. | Mark EastonHome editor@BBCMarkEastonon Twitter
But my disgust turned to outrage when the news editor told me they wouldn't be running the story. "Our readers don't want to hear about that kind of thing," he said. I remember he used the word "paedophilia" - a term I hadn't heard before. Whatever it meant, it was not a subject deemed worthy of space in that evening's paper.
It is a reminder of just how attitudes have changed. Many readers will recall how, 40 or 50 years ago, children were warned about the uncle with "wandering hands", the local flasher who hung around the playground or the PE teacher who took particular pleasure in getting small boys to do naked press-ups (that happened at my school).
But all too rarely were these kinds of concerns taken to the authorities. In fact, one suspects that the police would have regarded accusations of such improper behaviour as domestic or trivial. Rather like my news editor, the desk sergeant would probably have shrugged and suggested the complainant worried about proper crime.
The Jimmy Savile story takes the sexual politics of the present day and applies them to another age. The teenage groupies in the 60s and 70s who hung around the pop scene, hoping a bit of the glamour and excitement would rub off onto their own lives, were entering very dangerous territory - a world where sexual liberation was colliding with traditional power structures.
It is obvious now that many young lives were seriously damaged by powerful men who took advantage of the new freedoms and opportunities, exploiting their position without thought for their responsibilities. The sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll philosophy glorified hedonic pleasure, living for the moment and to hell with the consequences.
But consequences there were for the victims, if not for the perpetrators.
Today, of course, the word paedophilia is a familiar term in the news lexicon. Those found guilty of crossing the boundaries face the full force of public condemnation as well as the full force of the law. There is nothing trivial or domestic about the sexual assault or rape of children.
A similar cultural change can be seen with the sexual politics of the office. Many career women over the age of 50 will have a story of being touched up or groped by some senior colleague at work. From the 60s until relatively recently, there existed a pervasive attitude that unwanted sexual advances were an irritant rather than a disciplinary matter or a crime.
Although the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 did provide some protection for women in the workplace, it was not until the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 that employers were obliged to take seriously the issue of female staff being bullied or sexually harassed in the office.
Bosses covered their legal obligations by introducing equal opportunities policies and training sessions, requiring staff to discuss and consider the meaning of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the work-place. I think this open debate had a much bigger impact on male behaviour in the office than the threat of legal action.
The Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination) Regulations of 2005 provided clear protection for any woman subjected to "unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of violating her dignity or of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for her".
The TUC has said that law means "that if, for example, a colleague persists in making remarks about what nice legs a female employee has, or her boss promises her promotion if she goes away with him for the weekend, she should be able to claim that this is sexual harassment".
At the time these laws were being debated, there were plenty of voices arguing they were unnecessary - more red tape binding business from the "right-on brigade". Today, I suspect few people would demand the repeal of such legislation. Office politics has changed markedly over recent decades.
So, again, when considering the lecherous behaviour of disc jockeys and other pop celebrities in the past, we need to remember the cultural framework within which it happened. That is not to excuse the boorish, thoughtless or vile activities of powerful men who should have known better.
But it is a reminder of how far we have come and how recent some of those changes have been. We sometimes fail to notice how civilizing forces are improving people's behaviour.
Anyone with information into these allegations - or who needs support on the issues raised in this article - can call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 or email [email protected], or call their local police station by dialling 101.
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The Liberal Democrats name their new leader on Thursday. Either Tim Farron or Norman Lamb will follow in the footsteps of some distinguished and colourful figures, who have led the party and its Liberal Party forerunner through the peaks and troughs of their post-war history.
| Prime Ministers and political legends
The great Liberal prime ministers of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century - most notably William Gladstone, Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George - achieved a status that perhaps none of their recent successors could have hoped to emulate, although Nick Clegg came closest as deputy prime minister.
While their eccentricities and peccadilloes would not stand up to contemporary scrutiny, Gladstone led the country on a record four separate occasions and was prime minister when Britain's writ ran across much of the globe while Asquith and Lloyd George saw the country through the trauma of the First World War and its aftermath.
The Earl of Rosebery and Henry Campbell-Bannerman are less celebrated, the former noteworthy for owning a Derby winner while in power and the latter for winning the 1906 election - the last time the party gained an overall majority.
Clement Davies (1945-56)
The Welsh barrister and politician became Liberal Party leader in the aftermath of Labour's landslide victory in the 1945 election.
The result marked the end of an era for the party, which had been part of the wartime coalition government for five years.
Its leader Archibald Sinclair, who had been Secretary of State for Air under Winston Churchill and had previously been a Cabinet minister in Ramsay MacDonald's national government, had lost his own seat and the party saw its parliamentary representation almost halved from 21 to 12 - its worst performance for more than 100 years.
However, things were to get progressively worse under Mr Davies' leadership, with its share of the vote falling from 9.1% in the 1950 election to 2.5% a year later and 2.7% in 1955. By that point, the party had been reduced to just six seats.
Originally viewed as a caretaker leader until the more charismatic Sinclair returned to Parliament - which he never did - Davies held the party together for more than a decade at perhaps its lowest point.
Jo Grimond (1956-1967)
Jo Grimond succeeded Clement Davies in 1956 after a coup by senior party figures.
The Orkney and Shetland MP - whom leadership contender Tim Farron has named as one of his three heroes - put a spring back in the party's step and gradually rebuilt its standing in the country and its presence in Parliament.
Although the party effectively stood still in the 1959 election, it fared much better in the two subsequent polls, winning nine seats in 1964 and 12 seats two years later, largely at the expense of the Conservatives.
Its performance in 1964, when it won 11.2% of the vote, was its best for more than 30 years.
It was during Grimond's reign that the party won the first and, by no means the last, of a series of sensational by-election victories, taking the seats of Torrington in 1958 and Orpington in 1962.
Jeremy Thorpe (1967-1976)
After leading the party into three general elections, Mr Grimond made way for a younger leader although, ironically, he was to step in on a temporary basis almost a decade later after Jeremy Thorpe's own resignation.
Thorpe, the first Liberal leader to be elected, led the party through the most eventful period in its post-war history.
While the party lost ground in 1970, when its number of MPs halved to six, it made spectacular progress in February 1974, winning almost 20% of the vote - although it only had 14 seats to show for its best performance since 1929.
Edward Heath tried to strike a deal with Thorpe so he could stay in Downing Street, which could have seen the Liberal leader offered a cabinet post, but the negotiations came to nothing.
Six months later, the Lib Dems repeated their feat - winning 13 seats and 18% of the vote.
However, two years later Thorpe resigned the leadership to fight charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder amid allegations of an affair with a former male model, After a high-profile trial - which was interrupted so he could fight the 1979 election - he was acquitted of the charges but his political career was over.
David Steel (1976-1988)
David Steel overwhelmingly defeated John Pardoe to become Liberal Party leader in 1976 and his decade in charge of the party was characterised by huge shifts and realignments in British politics.
Under his leadership, the Liberals effectively kept James Callaghan's Labour government in power for nearly three years, when its majority disappeared, although under the terms of the Lib-Lab pact, Steel never joined the government.
The party did respectably in the 1979 election, winning 11 seats but when it joined forces with the new Social Democratic Party to fight the 1983 election as the SDP-Liberal Alliance, it briefly threatened to break the mould of British politics.
Although together they won a spectacular 25% of the vote, just 700,000 fewer votes than Labour, this only translated into 23 seats, of which the Liberal side of the alliance won 17. Four years later, it repeated the feat, winning 22 seats - of which 17 again were Liberal.
Robert Maclennan/David Steel (1988)
After the Liberal Party officially agreed to merge with the SDP, David Steel and the SDP's Robert Maclennan acted as interim joint leaders of what initially was the Social and Liberal Democrats until a new leader was elected.
Neither men chose to stand in the subsequent contest, in which Paddy Ashdown comfortably beat Alan Beith.
Paddy Ashdown (1988-1999)
The former royal marine took the party to a different level altogether, in terms of organisation and electoral performance, although his leadership opened a debate about the Lib Dems position in the political spectrum which still rages today.
Paddy Ashdown fought two elections as leader. In 1992, the party effectively trod water, winning 20 seats in an election which was dismayingly familiar to critics of the two-party system.
But that all changed when, in 1997, the Conservative vote collapsed in large parts of the country and the Lib Dems, particularly in the west country and the London suburbs, were the main beneficiaries. They won 46 seats - ironically on a lower share than in 1992.
Despite having the largest third party presence in Parliament for over 60 years, the scale of Labour's landslide meant the Lib Dems were effectively marginalised.
Pre-election talk of a realignment on the centre-left, and progressive co-operation in the shape of electoral reform largely disappeared and Paddy Ashdown stepped down two years later.
Charles Kennedy (1999-2006)
Charles Kennedy saw off four other candidates, the largest field in the party's history, to win the leadership in 1999.
Establishing a principle of so-called equidistance between the two main parties, Mr Kennedy took the party to its post-war electoral pinnacle, winning 52 seats in 2001 and 62 seats in 2005 - when its vote share exceeded 22%.
Mr Kennedy's opposition to the Iraq War gave the party a distinct identity and electoral asset it had perhaps lacked in the past and it started winning seats in places such as Solihull and Cardiff Central, which were virgin territory for the party.
But, despite this success, there was a rebellion against Mr Kennedy - who had been fighting a drink problem - by MPs who thought the party should have done better and he was forced to resign less than eight months after the election.
Sir Menzies Campbell (2006-7)
Sir Menzies Campbell led the party for less than two years, winning a leadership contest in 2006 but stepping down voluntarily, albeit in the face of calls to quit, eighteen months later.
The former champion sprinter, who competed in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, is the only permanent leader in the party's history not to have fought a general election.
From the start, Sir Menzies was dogged by question marks over his age and whether the party needed a more youthful figure. But when he stood down, the then 66-year old was temporarily succeeded by Vince Cable, himself only two years younger.
Nick Clegg (2007-2015)
Nick Clegg achieved a series of notable firsts in his eight years as Lib Dem leader.
The former EU official and MEP was the narrowest winner of any leadership election in the party's history, prevailing by just over 500 votes from Chris Huhne.
He took part in the first ever TV general election debate and, most significantly, he took the party into government for the first time in 60 years, becoming deputy prime minister in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, in which the party had more than 20 ministers and influence over all its key decisions.
He stood down after a series of electoral reverses, which culminated in May when the party saw its number of MPs drop from 62 to eight and its lowest vote share for 45 years.
Who's going to be next?
We find out on Thursday afternoon whether it will be Tim Farron, above left, or Norman Lamb, above right, who will be tasked with resurrecting liberal fortunes. Find out more about them and the leadership contest here.
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Almost a million young people are unemployed in the UK, according the latest figure. Newsbeat has brought together a panel of experts to give young jobseekers advice from application through to interview. Check back all week for the latest videos.
| DAY FIVE: HOW TO LAND YOUR DREAM JOB
Chris Samuels, 24, dreams of becoming an actor or television presenter.
He says: "I know that media work is unrealistic because it is competitive, but I like making people laugh."
The panel give him advice on networking and using contacts, and how to tailor his CV to suit the type of job he is going for.
DAY FOUR: HOW TO BOUNCE BACK AFTER BEING LAID OFF
Ben, 22, has been finding it hard to get motivated after losing his job and isn't sure what area he wants to work in.
"I've been going for anything that I believe I can do basically. I've applied for retail, I've been trying to look for factory and warehouse work. I've lost count to be honest," he said.
"Finding the motivation to just so much as get out of bed in the morning has become a real struggle for me since I got laid off."
The panel help him come up with a plan to get studying again.
DAY THREE: HOW TO MAKE YOUR CV STAND OUT
Eighteen-year-old George from Bury has been looking for a job since leaving college in June.
"I've found it difficult because all companies want experience," he said. "They just email back saying there are too many applicants and I haven't got through.
"I am stuck in the house because I haven't got enough cash to go out and see my friends."
George is having problems getting an interview, so dragons Shaf Rasul, Kavita Oberoi and Tom Mursell give him some hints and tips on writing a better CV and covering letter.
DAY TWO: GETTING AN INTERVIEW
Nina, 24, from Swindon has been unemployed since losing her job in January.
She is now looking for work in a retail store but has only got through to the face-to-face interview stage on a handful of occassions.
"There is a bit of a hurdle between applying for the job and getting the interview," she said.
"In my area it is very difficult because the unemployment numbers are so high."
Nina wants to know how to nail the perfect interview when she gets to that stage.
DAY ONE: STANDING OUT
Twenty-three-year-old Taahir from Leicester graduated this summer from De Montford University with a degree in marketing.
He has been applying for jobs in the motor industry.
"My passion is cars so I've been looking for a job in that area but companies are coming back saying I just haven't got the experience," he said.
"It feels like employers are cutting marketing departments, especially in the recession."
In a competitive jobs market he wants to know how to get noticed when he applies for a marketing job.
Check back each day this week for more hints and tips from our jobs panel.
NEWSBEAT'S JOBS PANEL
Shaf is one of Scotland's best known entrepreneurs. He runs IT company E-Net Computers and says he earns enough to "justify buying a new Aston Martin every year". He stars in the latest online version of Dragons Den.
Kavita is one of Britain's best known female entrepreneurs. She founded and still runs a healthcare business in Derby. Kavita has appeared on TV shows including The Secret Millionaire and The Apprentice: You're Fired!
Twenty-year-old Tom Mursell runs a website for school leavers called notgoingtouni.co.uk. He was named as a Future 100 Young Entrepreneur in 2008, lives on the south coast and supports his local football club, Southampton FC.
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A commemorative plaque marking the 70th anniversary of the return of islanders after the German occupation has been unveiled in Alderney. | The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by enemy forces during World War Two.
Jersey, Guernsey and Sark were liberated in May 1945, but the people of Alderney were not able to return home until 15 December.
Other events will include a musical play written for the anniversary.
In June 1940 the entire population of Alderney - about 1,500 people - were evacuated to the UK on six ships.
Shortly after Germans soldiers arrived on the island they set up concentration and forced labour camps where hundreds of workers died during the occupation.
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A man has been charged with the murder of a pedestrian who died when she was hit by a car. | Janet Scott, 51, of Arnold, Nottingham, was pronounced dead at the scene in Peel Street.
Simon Mellors, 56, of Berkeley Court, Nottingham, has also been charged with the attempted murder of a man, 35, who remains in hospital with non life-threatening injuries.
Mr Mellors is due to appear before magistrates on Thursday.
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You're in skin-tight lycra leggings, with a pair of brightly coloured y-fronts pulled over the top, and (other than the chafing) there's only one thing on your mind - fighting crime. | By Will ChalkNewsbeat reporter
Being a superhero used to be so simple, these days it's anything but.
Take the Netflix show The Umbrella Academy, the first series of which was watched by 45 million households. The show is more about a dysfunctional family wrestling with the effects of a cold and unloving father than about superhuman powers.
As British actor Tom Hopper puts it: "They're all fighting against their powers, really - they're all trying to just be human".
His character, Luther, is a human/ape hybrid with super strength who spent his formative years living on the moon, but he spends most of his screen time moping around because he's in love with his adopted sister.
It makes you wonder: Just how human can you make a superhero before they stop being, well, super?
"The characters represent a lot of people's issues in real life," Tom tells Radio 1 Newsbeat ahead of the release of the show's second series.
It sees the seven heroes accidentally stranded in 1960s Texas with only 10 days to stop a nuclear apocalypse.
Before they get to the small matter of saving the world, though, they've got to get to grips with a racist and homophobic society.
"There's a lot of people in certain demographics that have these struggles and we represent them and then, on top of that, we've got to think about being a superhero," Tom says.
"That's the problem in their life, their main issue is that they've got to be superheroes and that's why I fell in love with the script in the first place because, fundamentally, it's about them as people."
People, though, as everyone knows, are complicated creatures.
Take Klaus - played by Irish actor Robert Sheehan. Blessed (or cursed?) with the ability to talk to the dead, he ends up using drink and drugs as a way of getting them to shut up.
"I suppose for each of the characters their superpower represents some some base level pain that they have to then deal with," Robert says.
"For Klaus, he's never been bothered to really deal with the source, so instead it's just easier to kind of throw drugs down on top.
"And that's a very human way of dealing with with a struggle."
Every one of The Umbrella Academy's "base level pains" and "fundamental struggles", though, is balanced out by something completely bizarre; from talking monkeys and fish to what might be the greatest relationship between an old man and a shop mannequin ever committed to film.
It's based on graphic novels by My Chemical Romance frontman and self-confessed comic geek Gerard Way, and it owes a lot to classics like X-Men and The Watchmen.
Still - its significance to the genre as a whole could be huge. With massive viewer figures, it's arguably the most successful superhero franchise ever not to come out of Marvel or DC.
Tom, though, insists taking on the big boys isn't on their minds.
"I think that's probably part of the reason it works is that we don't see other superhero shows or movies as competition.
"We're just in our own little world and I think that's what is quite enjoyable about The Umbrella Academy family."
But, regardless of whether its cast like to think about the bigger picture or not, The Umbrella Academy has carved itself out a niche at what feels like a crucial time for the genre.
With Netflix losing the rights to broadcast Marvel content last year, there's an appetite for new comic book adaptations.
Then you've got Alan Moore, one of the most celebrated graphic novelists of all time, describing existing superhero culture as "tremendously embarrassing."
In short, it's a good time to be trying something new.
"There seems to be something about the moment we're in that seems to be pushing superhero narratives to the fore again, as maybe we look for heroes to help us solve problems," says Rayna Denison, a senior lecturer in film, television and Media Studies at the University of East Anglia.
She specialises in superheroes and says The Umbrella Academy is one of the best TV adaptations of a comic she's seen in a while.
"I like how all of the superhero archetypes get stripped down and deconstructed and broken and then put back together, and I think that's also something we're interested in as a society is figuring out the human responses to what to do when heroes fall.
"We're getting serious social issues written into the characters now in ways that are creating a lot more diversity within superhero cultures, but also allowing superheroes to bear the burden of the difficult questions society is asking of itself.
"And I think that's really important because it means that media that were once meant for children are now very much aimed to all of us."
The Umbrella Academy season 2 launches on Netflix on 31 July.
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Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
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There are a growing number of gadgets and apps on the market which aim to help keep women safe from sexual harassment and attack. But are they effective or could they merely reinforce the image of women as victims? | By Lorelei MihalaTechnology of Business reporter
It was five o'clock in the morning. Alexandra Ceranek was cycling through "a lonely industrial area" on her way to work as usual.
"I'm a saleswoman and I have to start my work very early in the morning," says the 48-year-old from Oberhausen, Germany.
"Two men were standing there," she recalls. As she cycled past, one of them attacked her, grabbing her backpack and pulling her down off the bike and onto the ground.
As she lay there in terror expecting a sexual assault, she kept saying to herself: "Pull the cord, Alex! You have to pull the cord!"
She was wearing a pair of undershorts that incorporated an alarm activated by pulling on cut resistant cords made from the same material as bullet proof vests.
"My heart was beating wildly, but I managed to pull the cord and set off the alarm," she says. "It made such a loud noise the two men ran away."
These Safe Shorts incorporate a lock and alarm that also activates when someone tries to remove the garment by force.
Safe Shorts founder Sandra Seilz says her own experience prompted her to develop the product. Returning from a run she was accosted by three men, she says, one of whom tried to pull off her leggings while the other held her down.
"You can imagine what the intention of the third man was," says Ms Seilz. "But I was lucky. A man set his dog on them and the three men ran away."
Assaults such as these are all too common for many women around the world, prompting many companies to come up with personal gadgets aimed at warding off attacks and alerting others.
"Vendors usually come from a crowdfunding background typically with very similar product functionality," says Rishi Kaul, a research analyst for consultancy Ovum.
"You click a button on the device and your GPS location is sent to preselected contacts, sometimes with an accompanying siren."
For example, Safer, developed by Indian start-up Leaf Wearables, sells a pendant that doubles as a panic button. It is controlled by an accompanying smartphone app.
Tanya Gaffney, 24, found it useful when walking to meet a friend in New Delhi, India, one evening.
"I felt someone walking behind me and it just felt suspicious. Every lane I turned into he took the same turn which made me panic," recalls Ms Gaffney. "I was hoping to find a female figure or cop."
But nobody was around.
She sent an alert to her chosen group of "guardians" - her parents and two close friends - by pressing the back of her smart pendant twice.
"Luckily, the first person to call me was my friend who I was on my way to meet at the market. He told me he was tracking me via GPS and that he was on his way to get me," she says.
The man following her eventually took a different turn, but "the feeling of panic still terrorises me to this day," she says.
Similarly, Nimb is a smart ring incorporating a panic button that sends an alert and your location to chosen recipients. The alert can also be forwarded to the emergency services.
Nimb co-founder Kathy Roma was also a victim of crime 17 years ago. A man tried to strike up a conversation with her and stabbed her in the stomach when she didn't reply. Seriously wounded, she looked for help in a nearby building. She believes having a personal alert device would have brought help sooner.
Other devices include Revolar, which enables users to "check in" and let loved ones or friends know you've arrived home safely with a single click. Three clicks sends a "help" alert.
And at the more sophisticated end of the market, Occly has developed Blinc, a wearable security device that includes a "bodycam" to record video evidence of an attack, as well as setting off a siren, flashing lights and a call for help.
According to the World Health Organisation, about one in three women have experienced some form of assault, whether physical, sexual or both. And nearly two-fifths of murders of women are perpetrated by their partners.
These safety gadgets have obviously helped some women avert disaster, but not everyone is convinced of their merits.
"We welcome anything that can be used to improve safety and help prevent sexual violence," says Fay Maxted OBE, chief executive of The Survivors Trust, an umbrella agency for 130 rape and sexual abuse support services across the UK.
"But such technology can also be misused - it can be hacked or used by perpetrators to track or stalk someone," she warns.
More Technology of Business
And Ms Maxted also worries that products such as Safe Shorts could "play on the fears a woman might have about being out on her own, rather than making her feel safe. They reinforce the image that a woman is unable to protect herself.
"Why should women have to wear clothes that are locked?" she asks.
But as far as Alexandra Ceranek is concerned, her Safe Shorts prevented an assault from developing into something much worse.
"I want a protection when there is a critical situation and someone wants to attack me," she reflects.
Ovum's Rishi Kaul thinks women's safety wearables will remain a niche market, particularly since there are now plenty of smartphone apps offering similar functionality, some that can be triggered by a scream or simply by shaking the phone.
"Women's safety wearables account for just 3.5% of the total wearables market," says Mr Kaul. "This function can simply be replaced by a safety app on the phone, which is why there hasn't been much success in this niche."
But for Ms Maxted, the issue of women's safety is more about education than technology.
"What technology solutions are there to teach potential abusers about consent and respect for women?" she asks.
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The Isle of Man lifeboat was called out to rescue two people on board a small yacht which got into trouble near the south coast of the island.
| The inshore lifeboat was launched from Port St Mary Harbour at about 19:00 BST on Thursday.
During the rescue the craft, a laser dinghy, was towed to safety after losing a rudder in Bay ny Carrickey.
An RNLI spokesman said both members of the yacht's crew were found standing in shallow water and were unhurt.
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Three men have appeared in court accused of possessing a handgun and conspiring to cause grievous bodily harm in Denbighshire. | They appeared before Llandudno Magistrates on Friday and were remanded in custody to appear at Mold Crown Court on 26 May.
It follows what North Wales Police called "an incident" in Wellington Road, Rhyl, on Monday.
A fourth man, who is in hospital, faces the same charges.
Two of the men also face drugs charges, including conspiring to supply cannabis.
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The demise of Thomas Cook has brought criticism of bosses and rival firms, and concern for its workers. The concerns may not stack as they seem.
The departure of such a big player opens up opportunities for others. They'll require skilled travel industry workers. | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
It would be a small irony if, amid unprecedented political turbulence and incompetence, the UK government successfully repatriated 150,000 holiday-makers from the collapsed Thomas Cook travel firm, and without too much hassle.
We're much more attuned to fiasco. And there's plenty that can go wrong in hiring a fleet of planes from scratch, and transporting up to 17,000 people per day. If Chris Grayling were still transport secretary, what would the chances be of him contracting an airline without any planes?
Day one, and the joint effort with the travel industry had 95% of those who had been scheduled to come home actually doing so - even though some were landing at the wrong airport.
Signs of that apparent initial success for Project Matterhorn quickly turned attention to the loss of 9,000 jobs in Britain, and more than that again overseas, whose work depended on Thomas Cook custom.
It turned also to the cost for flight-only passengers of finding a ticket that could get them home, finding that prices were soaring. They can keep rising even as they search and decide.
And of course, it turned to the pay and bonuses of senior executives while the travel company traversed turbulent times and eventually crashed.
Well, here are a few thoughts, many of them contrarian in nature. You'd expect little else, right?
Long-term incentives
On that executive pay, £8m in pay and bonuses for the chief executive over the past five years looks like the going rate for a company of this size.
You might say the "going rate" is obscene. And compared with pay for cabin crew and others working unsociable hours, in cramped unhealthy aluminium tubes, and putting up with the rudeness of tanked-up British holiday-makers, then you'd have a point.
It's neither my role nor inclination to defend executive pay, least of all in a company that's gone under.
But much of these bonuses are usually paid in shares, which executives are, usually, not allowed to cash in for several years after they've been "earned". These long-term incentive plans are intended to encourage bosses to think, well, long-term.
So if these millions in bonuses were tied up in Thomas Cook shares, then they're worthless now.
Surges and spikes to flight prices
On profiteering rivals, anyone who books an airline ticket online these days expects to find search engine software that digs out the lowest price and offers a wide range of choice.
That has worked pretty well for the customer. If you don't believe me, book a British rail ticket now: compare and contrast.
It's that same software that is causing prices to soar. Surge pricing is a feature of airline, hotel and Uber booking. If demand surges and supply falls, the algorithm kicks in and prices can go berserk.
There may be means by which the algorithms' inflationary effect can be capped.
But according to Skyscanner, the Edinburgh air ticket search company that knows a thing or two about this end of the industry, such spikes tend to be short lived. Prices quickly adjust back down.
Yes, they'll probably be higher than they were. But if a large chunk of capacity has just been taken out of the air, by an airline going bust, then the laws of supply and demand mean you'll be paying at least some more.
Headwinds from outside influences
And that brings us to the opportunity that comes form Thomas Cook's collapse. It's clear that it had failed to adjust to changes in its marketplace, not least the move to online booking, and to personalised itineraries, with declining demand for conventional package holidays.
One of its rivals, Tui, claims to have hedged against that, and against currency fluctuations that did so much damage to Thomas Cook, by vertically integrating.
That is, it owns many of the hotels and cruise ships, rather than contracting with foreign-owned providers.
It still has to staff and fuel them in foreign currencies, and it faces headwinds from the Boeing 737 Max grounding and from Brexit uncertainty. But in a statement to reassure investors on Tuesday, Tui was keen to distance itself from the Thomas Cook way of doing things.
Its share price rose. So did the market valuation of Jet2, Ryanair, and IAG, owner of British Airways. Why? Because of that opportunity. Thomas Cook's failure does not mean the British have stopped wanting to go on foreign holidays.
Not only were 150,000 Thomas Cook customers overseas when the company went bust, but a million or so more were booked for future holidays. And while they may have lost deposits and worse, these people still want a holiday to look forward to. Many more will book closer to the next holiday season.
A dedicated workforce
So the airlines and other travel companies that can grab market share have a big opportunity. You can safely bet they're hard at work on exploiting it.
For airlines, the rebound may be subdued. For the past couple of years, there has been over-capacity in the lower-cost segment of the European market. The departure of Thomas Cook relieves some of the pressure on Ryanair and its ilk.
For those successful in grabbing market share in this people-intensive industry, they will need to recruit skilled travel industry workers, from cabin crew to booking agents to foreign hoteliers.
It's clearly very tough to lose one's job. And the evidence we're seeing is that Thomas Cook had a dedicated workforce, who deserved better.
But in a tight labour market, there are much worse circumstances in which to be forced into the search for a new job.
Nimble, innovative and lucky
Not every sector can be so confident. While some see the demise of Thomas Cook as a victim of Brexit, others see it as an early sign of the corporate clear-out that comes with an economic downturn.
If so, others will follow in other sectors. The harsh, sometimes brutal Darwinism of the marketplace will take the weak, goes the orthodoxy. It will clear space for growth of the more nimble, innovative and lucky.
It may also re-shape the job market for those whose skills are aligned and adaptable to the future demands of fast-changing technology.
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Private equity firm OpCapita, which bought electricals retailer Comet less than a year ago for £2, is already exploring bids to sell the business. | The BBC understands that, while the business has not formally been put up for sale, it is examining a number of bids from interested parties.
Comet was sold to OpCapita in February for the nominal sum of £2, with its previous owner Kesa also investing £50m into the retailer.
Comet operates 240 stores in the UK.
Sir John Clare, formerly chief executive of Dixons Retail, joined the business as chairman on the same day the Comet sale to OpCapita was finalised.
Sir John had argued that the business could be turned around, despite analyst forecasts at the time of his appointment pointing to operational losses of £35m. Its sales had fallen much further that of its peers, Dixons and Argos, over the crucial Christmas period in 2011.
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President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure to strike a blow for sexual diversity by ordering the "Pantheonisation" - interment at the national mausoleum in Paris - of two of France's best-loved poets, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. | By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris
A petition signed by 10 former culture ministers, as well as a long list of artists and intellectuals, says the two poets - who had an intense but ultimately violent affair in the early 1870s - "were symbols of diversity".
They suffered the harsh homophobia of their time. They are the French Oscar Wildes.
"It is a question of simple justice to have them enter jointly into the Pantheon alongside other great literary figures like Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, Hugo and Malraux," the petition reads.
Current Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot, while not signing the petition, nevertheless said she agreed. "Bringing these two poets and lovers into the Pantheon would have a significance that is not just historical and literary, but profoundly relevant today," she said.
Arguments for and against moving the poets
The call, however, has triggered an angry backlash, with opponents saying the poets are being made the victims of a 21st Century cultural power-grab, and that absolutely nothing in their lives or work suggests suitability for a patriotic Valhalla.
Rimbaud and Verlaine are certainly among the most revered of French poets - and it is also true that of the 75 residents of the Pantheon, none is there for poetry. Victor Hugo was transferred for his political achievement.
Supporters say there are both literary and moral reasons for their re-interment.
Not only has "their genius nourished for more than a century our literary and poetic imagination", but also their current burial places - in Charleville-Mezieres, Ardennes for Rimbaud, in a cemetery off the Paris ring road for Verlaine - are "unworthy".
There is also the homophobic persecution which Verlaine above all had to endure.
Famously, the poets' relationship ended in 1873 when Verlaine fired a gun and lightly wounded Rimbaud in Brussels.
Rimbaud refused to press charges, but Belgian police went ahead anyway and their report was heavily slanted by their distaste for the poets' relationship.
Verlaine spent a year and a half in jail.
Arthur Rimbaud: 20 October 1854 - 10 November 1891
France's culture minister says she sometimes arrives at cabinet meetings with Rimbaud's 1871 poem The Drunken Boat coursing through her head.
As I was going down impassive Rivers, I no longer felt myself guided by haulers
Yelping redskins had taken them as targets, And had nailed them naked to coloured stakes
Paul Verlaine: 30 March 1844 - 8 January 1896
Lines of Verlaine's Chanson d'automne were used to warn the French Resistance of the imminent Allied landings in Normandy in World War Two.
Les sanglots longs/ Des violons/ De l'automne (The long sighs of autumn's violins)
Blessent mon coeur/ D'une langueur/ Monotone (Wound my heart in a monotonous languor)
Society 'taking its revenge'
But opponents of Pantheonisation say it would make a mockery of what the poets actually stood for - which was certainly not membership of the French establishment. Rather it was liberty, rebellion, and a refusal to kowtow to the cultural zeitgeist.
"Everything about their lives, everything about their work shows them turning their back on society," writer Étienne de Montety said in French newspaper Le Figaro. "They were passionate for liberty, to the point of making transgression an art form."
"Resenting the slight, today society is taking its revenge. With the help of academia and government, it is trying to co-opt them."
Others have pointed out that support for the motherland was not exactly the poets' strong point.
In the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, Rimbaud even said he would welcome a Prussian victory. And of the Pantheon itself, the poet once said that it was an "official acropolis which takes modern barbarity to new extremes".
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A man has been reported for summons for driving without due care and attention after a lorry and a tram-train collided in Sheffield. | The crash happened on Staniforth Road on 25 October, the first day of service for the new tram-train service.
South Yorkshire Police said a 60-year-old man, from Rotherham, is due to appear at Sheffield Magistrates Court on 14 February.
The force said he is also to be charged with contravening a red traffic light.
The tram-trains run on the rail network and tram tracks between Sheffield and Rotherham.
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The government of Jersey has announced its exit strategy from coronavirus. | The island will move through four "levels" with increasing freedoms towards a "new normal", the Health Minister said.
The 'Stay at Home' order is due to be lifted on 12 May, meaning people can spend an unlimited amount of time outside.
Groups of up to five will be allowed to meet outside, with restaurants able to serve food in outdoor seating areas.
Some shops will re-open and employees may return to offices if there is no risk of "close personal contact", the government said.
Ahead of the reduced measures, islanders can spend up to four hours outside for any kind of activity from Saturday.
This can include meeting up to two other people from outside their household.
Details of each 'level' in the exit strategy include:
Chief Minister John Le Fondre said the timings of each new level would depend on "how quickly and how far" the virus spread as relaxed restrictions exposed more people to infection.
"Exiting safely from Covid-19 is likely to be a journey that takes a number of months, and we will progress more safely towards a full exit if we continue to work together."
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It is 10 years since US pop band Maroon 5 scored their first hit with Harder To Breathe and, despite a few career hiccups, they have been a consistent presence in the charts ever since. | By Mark SavageBBC News entertainment reporter
In 2011, they scored their biggest hit with the disco-funk anthem Moves Like Jagger, officially the 38th biggest-selling single in UK chart history.
With the band's fifth album V ready for release, frontman Adam Levine is a little busy, to say the least.
As well as marrying lingerie model Behati Prinsloo last month, he is also filming season seven of The Voice US, and starring alongside Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo in the hit film Begin Again.
He spoke to the BBC last month, joining his bandmate James Valentine on the phone from California.
Hello Maroon 5!
Adam: Hello!
James: Hi there!
It's very handy that you have distinct accents, because I don't want to misattribute any quotes. If you do a phone interview with a boy band, it's impossible to tell them apart.
Adam: I'm just glad you didn't think we were a boy band.
Has that happened before?
Adam: Early on in our careers, yes. People didn't know what to make of us, so they thought we were a boy band.
Why was that? Because you're a good-looking band?
Adam: Well, number one, thank you very much. Number two, I think people mistook our R&B and soul influences as pop.
James: We didn't easily fit into a category at that point, and I don't think people understood that we wrote our own songs.
Adam: It's weird because, to me, the thing that made a boy band a boy band was they didn't play any instruments and they choreographed their dance moves. If you don't do that, you're not a boy band. Even Hanson - they're a band. They were young, but they were just dudes who played in a band. A boy band is the headsets and the sparkly stuff and all those things.
So you've never had choreography lessons?
Adam: Not yet!
It's three years since you last album, Overexposed. What's happened since then?
Adam: Has it been three years, really? Yikes. Where does all the time go?
Jack: I don't know. We're old men now. I sort of count this, today, as me and my girlfriend's anniversary. We had a day of interviews like this three years ago - and that's one of the first nights that we met.
Adam: And we had a huge fight.
James: A huge fight.
Adam: It was brutal.
James : That argument was amazing. We were having this screaming match in the hallway of the Roosevelt Hotel and this woman came out of her room angrily, to complain because it was late at night. The she recognised Adam and had a very confused response. She was all ready to yell at us for making noise and then she went, "Oh, hey, I love you on The Voice!"
Do you argue often?
Both: Yeah.
James: Less now. I think we've learnt how to deal with stuff a little more diplomatically, but I've been in a band with him for almost 15 years, and he's been with some of these other guys for the last over 20 years. So stuff comes up.
Songwriting partnerships often have that tension.
James: If that tension isn't there, it means people don't care about what's happening.
So what was the key argument behind this album?
Adam: To be totally honest, we've been doing this a long time and, as far as the music is concerned, it kind of takes its own shape.
Your last album had a lot of hits - Moves Like Jagger basically rescued your career. Was there pressure to live up to that standard?
Adam: On Overexposed, there was a very conscious effort to have as many hits as we possibly could. It was very gluttonous in that way. The band had this new-found success from The Voice and then Moves Like Jagger and we were very excited because we hadn't had hits for a while. So we were very hit-drunk.
On this record, we've balanced those things [by] adding a bit more thought into what would make a great album - instead of being just a collection of pop hits.
Is there a song that epitomises that thinking - one you're proud of, but which would never work as a single?
James: Most of the songs would work as singles. I don't think we'd put a song on a record any more unless it could be a single. It might seem to work against what we've just said - but…
Adam: But quality control is the number one criteria to us: If a song doesn't feel special, we wouldn't include it. And we don't mean that in a cheap way. We mean that like, "Could this song connect with the world?" Then, after we decide that, we say, "but is this the kind of hit song we want to have on our record?"
When the album hits iTunes in September, how long will you wait before checking Twitter? Are you sitting at home pressing the refresh button?
Adam: Of course! Listen, our fans are going to love it. Obviously, you never know with the numbers… you can't calculate whether or not you're going to have a hit, but we know it'll be a hit with our fans and that's the most important thing.
Social media means everything is declared a "hit" or a "miss" in an instant - but your first album, in particular, was a slow burning success. Does that snap judgement culture scare you?
Adam: No. The best thing about our business is that critique never plays into any of it. The power and the potency of music will transcend any one person's opinion about it.
People in the press only either say nice things or nasty things - but there's nothing we can do about it, except tell them to [expletive] off, I guess…
Have you ever sent a furious email to the music press?
Adam: No, no, no. I don't lose sleep over it. I just go on living my life.
Adam, you recently starred alongside Keira Knightley in a musical drama - did you have to give her any singing tips?
Adam: I told her that I thought she had a great voice but she didn't believe me!
It was pretty intimidating working with her, as lovely and amazing as she is, because she's an actress. I was finding my way for the first time but she was great and she helped me along.
It wasn't quite your acting debut, though. Didn't you have a role in American Horror Story?
Adam: American Horror Story was a glorified music video, basically. It was more of a montage of things happening than it was me having intense dialogue. I got to have creepy sex in a crypt and I got my arm ripped off and I got shot in the head.
That's what you want to do as an actor, isn't it? Get mauled in a gunfight or blown up by Darth Vader…
Adam: That's my childhood dream - to get blown up by Darth Vader. How did you know?
Have you thought about sending an audition tape to JJ Abrams for the new Star Wars?
Adam: No, I haven't. I haven't compiled that reel yet for him.
Or maybe he'd rather have a theme song...
Adam: I know, James and I are writing it now. It goes DUR DUR DURRR DURRR, DUR DUR DUN DE DURRRR.
James [joining in]: BLIP BLORP BLERGH.
Both: DURRR DUN DER DERRRRR... DUH-DURRRRRR. [Raucous laughter].
Maroon 5's album V is due for release in September. The first single, Maps, is out this month.
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It wasn't the most obvious career choice for Karen and Barry Mason, and not one they could talk about openly. But for years the couple ran LA's best-known gay porn shop, and distributed adult material across the US. | By Jaja MuhammadBBC Stories
Outwardly they were a respectable family. Karen had been a journalist on well-known newspapers in Chicago and Cincinnati. Barry had worked as a special effects engineer in the film industry, including Star Trek and 2001 Space Odyssey. They had met at a Jewish singles night and their three children went to Shabbat services, prayer meetings and studied hard at school.
Working as an inventor in the mid-1970s, Barry developed a safety device for kidney dialysis machines - but the company he was about to sell it to asked for insurance policies he couldn't afford, and the project suddenly collapsed, leaving the family in urgent need of cash.
It was then that Karen spotted a job advert in the LA Times - for someone to distribute Hustler magazine and other merchandise produced by porn magnate Larry Flynt. And so the Masons entered the porn industry.
They turned out to be good businesspeople. Within the first few weeks, and with very little effort, Karen and Barry received 5,000 orders, driving all over LA by car to deliver them. Though Hustler was a straight porn magazine, Flynt soon took over some failing gay porn publications and these too became part of the Masons' portfolio.
A few years later, when the owner of LA's most famous gay porn bookshop, Book Circus in West Hollywood, got into financial trouble, they were in a position to take it over. It was 1982 and the shop, which Barry and Karen renamed Circus of Books, was more than just a hardcore porn store, it was a refuge and a meeting place for LA's gay community.
The children, Micah, Rachel and Josh, were given strict instructions, when they visited the shop, never to look at or touch any of the products. They also had it drummed into them never to tell their friends the shop's name.
"We didn't want them to know what we did at all. 'We don't talk about the family business - we own a book store, and that's what we tell people,'" says Karen.
But these measures weren't completely successful.
Micah, the oldest child, stumbled across a porn video in the boot of Karen's car (he was disappointed to find that the Betamax tape would not play on the family's VHS machine).
Rachel was actually told the family secret by friends, at the age of 14, when she still had little idea what porn was. She was shocked. Her dad, Barry, was quite laid back and easygoing, but her mum was very religious and moralistic. Rachel regarded them as ordinary small business owners - just a family that ran a shop.
"The thought that they of all people were doing anything countercultural was the opposite of who my parents really were, to me," Rachel says.
"There's a level of conventionality in our family," Josh adds. "We were striving for the perfect family look."
Under Karen and Barry's management Circus of Books was a commercial success, and before long they opened a second branch in the Silverlake area of the city. They also began producing gay porn videos, starring Jeff Stryker (later described as "the Cary Grant of porno"). And alongside this they continued the porn distribution business - which almost led to disaster.
President Ronald Reagan had made clear his opposition to pornography, referring to it as a "form of pollution". He ordered his Attorney General, Edwin Meese, to investigate the industry, resulting in the publication of the 2,000-page Meese Report in 1986. At the same time new prosecution tactics were introduced, which put the Masons' business under pressure.
For some time afterwards it was only safe for distributors to sell material to people they knew. But one day a member of staff made a mistake. A customer had called to order three films, to be posted to "Joe's video store". The employee entered the information into the shop's database and shipped them out.
In fact the customer was the FBI.
The shop was raided in true Hollywood style. Agents rushed in with guns cocked and the Masons were charged with illegal transportation of obscene material across state lines.
The children didn't know it, but Barry was facing a possible five-year prison sentence and heavy fines. It seemed likely the shop would have to close.
The Masons' lawyer didn't give in, though. He argued that they were protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and emphasised the serious effect this stiff penalty would have on the family.
Eventually, Barry entered a guilty plea, and was let off without having to go to prison. And the shop stayed open.
During the Aids epidemic, Karen and Barry were model employers.
Barry would visit employees who became ill or who were taken to hospices with HIV, which was then a fatal illness.
Staff who became ill with Aids were supposed not to work - if they did they would lose their health insurance. But Karen would allow them to work on days they felt well enough, and would keep quiet about it.
"I let them come to work and paid them cash, which was illegal, but there was no reason that they should lose who they were. I have always felt that work is important," she says.
Many of the staff had no family to support them, but their families would call Karen and Barry after their children had died, asking for information.
Despite their long involvement with LA's gay community, conversations about sexuality never occurred in the Mason home.
Secretly though, the middle child, Rachel, began to live a queer lifestyle, sneaking out without her parents' knowledge.
Find out more
"I went to gay clubs, I had an underage ID, so I could go to drag shows, I was totally excited about all of that," she says.
Though she never formally came out, Rachel had always been artistic and rebellious, so it was no major surprise when she took a girl to the high school prom.
But Josh, the youngest child - a high-achiever who carried on his shoulders all his mother's expectations - was battling privately with a secret.
"I absorbed the most of mom's ambition towards perfection, I wanted to be perfect," Josh says.
One night before he was due to go back to college, it became too much. "I just started scribbling on the Post-it note, 'I'm gay'. I flung the pen and paper on the table."
Before doing this, he had made preparations to leave home, fearing that he would be thrown out. "I made sure I had my flight booked and paid for, because it wasn't an impossible thought," he says.
Karen's response was one that will stay with both of them forever.
"I said, 'Are you sure? Why are you doing this? God must be punishing me!'" Karen recounts. "I was fine with anybody who was gay, as far as I was concerned, but I really wasn't prepared to have a gay child."
Karen later realised that her reaction had hurt Josh, but she also found it difficult to talk to him about his sexuality and decided she needed help to handle her feelings.
"I needed to understand what it was to be a parent of somebody who was gay," she says.
"I joined this organisation called PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). I had to get OK with it, and [accept that] parents often have expectations for their children that really reflect more on the parents than on the children.
"When it came to my own son, I realised I had some thoughts about gay people that needed to change."
Later, both Barry and Karen became ambassadors for PFLAG helping other people understand the sexuality and gender variations of their children.
When the internet became widely available, around the turn of the century, Circus of Books - a community-driven store where people would meet and access exclusive content - began to go into decline.
The Silverlake branch closed in 2016; the West Hollywood shop closed in February this year.
"When that store closed it was unbelievable, the kind of reaction. People walked in and just burst into tears. I mean, people walked in through the front door, and we're just crying," Rachel says.
Many veteran customers and former staff members mourned the loss of what had once been one of their only safe spaces - and a part of LA's gay history.
But Karen says that by the end, she was no longer the kind of employer she wanted to be. As business tailed off, she couldn't provide staff with the benefits they had received in the past.
"I had worked with these people just as long as I could, to see that they got enrolled into education programmes, or at least had another part-time job," she says. "And I was fine with closing it."
A documentary, Circus of Books, directed by Rachel Mason and produced by Ryan Murphy, will be available on Netflix in spring 2020
You may also be interested in:
Margo Perin was 13 when her father summoned her to the living room of their home in Glasgow's West End, and asked if she'd like to look prettier. He sat facing her, smoking with a shiny black cigarette holder, his gold lighter and onyx ashtray by his side. "They can do remarkable things these days," he said.
A bewildering upbringing: Why Margo Perin was made to have a nose job at 13
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A killer who stabbed a 70-year-old man on a remote hilltop was soaking wet when he called at the door of a stranger to tell her that he had "committed a crime", a court has heard. | Moses Christensen, 22, appeared to have "walked through a stream" when he was detained by police at a property near Shropshire's B4363.
Richard Hall, of Perton, Staffordshire, was found dead on 14 August.
The defendant, who is on trial at Stafford Crown Court, denies murder.
Mr Hall told his wife he was going for a walk and would be back in time for something to eat, the court heard, but he was later attacked near the summit of Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire.
Jurors were told Mr Christensen, of Corser Street, Stourbridge, was said by friends and family members to have appeared depressed and suicidal in the weeks leading up to the attack, after abandoning plans to kayak around the UK.
PC Sam Bertie said the 22-year-old was taken to hospital after being found by officers outside the home of a woman who had called police.
The officer, whose bodycam footage was played to the court, said: "From my observations it appeared as though he had walked through a stream.
"It was as if he had sat in a bath - they (his clothes) were completely soaked."
The officer said Mr Christensen made "numerous comments about having murdered someone" and was able to describe the knife used.
The trial also heard from a resident who contacted police after Mr Christensen rang her doorbell.
The woman told the court Mr Christensen had politely asked her to call the police for him, saying he had committed a crime that he would like to admit.
During the conversation, the woman said, Mr Christensen had seemed OK and was "very respectful".
The crown alleges the defendant was able to understand the nature of his own conduct, formed rational judgments and killed Mr Hall "because that is exactly what he wanted to do".
Mr Christensen, who is said to have autism spectrum disorder and had previously spent periods of time living rough in the countryside, denies murder by reason of diminished responsibility.
Jurors have been told they must decide whether the unlawful killing Mr Hall was murder or manslaughter.
The trial continues.
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A woman charged with murdering a 55-year-old who was stabbed to death is due to stand trial. | Simone Hancock was found with fatal stab wounds in Ravenscroft Place, Richmond in Sheffield, on Saturday night.
Ms Hancock was taken to hospital where she later died.
Kerry Taylor, 41, of Ravenscroft Place, did not enter a plea at Sheffield Crown Court. She was remanded in custody for a trial on 11 January 2021.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or send video here.
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The Nigerian government has launched an unprecedented $1bn (£750m) operation to clean up the environmental damage caused by the oil industry, and it will be paid for by the polluters. But will it work? The BBC's Stephanie Hegarty reports from the Niger Delta. | The mangroves that used to stretch across the creeks of Kegbara Dere, Ogoniland, are now dead - their naked, rotten trunks stick out of the water, like skeletons coated in a layer of black.
This is the price that has been paid for the discovery of oil.
Erabanabari Kobah, an environmental campaigner who grew up on these creeks, used to fish here during his school holidays to make a little money to pay for his school books.
But he says children cannot do that anymore.
"This used to be a very flourishing mangrove forest full of diversity but as a result of the continuous oil spills the fish are all dead," he says, as he navigates a creek in a small wooden canoe.
"People can no longer do their fishing here. It's sad to see it like this."
Kogbara Dere was a fishing village in which life revolved around the creek.
Oil was discovered here in the 1950s but by the 1990s the wider Ogoniland community pushed the oil company operating in the area, Shell, out of the creek.
For many years afterwards the abandoned oil wells leaked until they were capped in 2010, but by then the damage was done.
'Cancer-causing' pollution
In 2011, the Nigerian government called on the UN Environment Programme to do an independent report on the damage in Ogoniland.
Researchers found that oil had penetrated far deeper into the soil than anyone expected and said the clean-up could take up to 30 years.
They said the people of Ogoniland were exposed to extreme health hazards from air and water pollution.
In some cases, cancer-causing compounds in crude oil - like benzene - could be found in drinking water at more than 900 times the safe level.
Despite the damage some communities are opposed to a clean-up fearing that the money spent on it could end up in the wrong hands.
The experience of what has happened in Bodo, just down the coast from Kogbara Dere, may shed some light on the difficulties ahead.
It was once a quiet fishing town but became famous last year when Shell paid out almost $80m in compensation for two major oil spills.
That money was split between 15,600 local people, with each getting about $3,000, and the rest was earmarked for the community as a whole, but that has also now been distributed to individuals.
It was a huge windfall for people who were until then living hand to mouth.
The money physically transformed the town with concrete houses popping up everywhere replacing mud and corrugated tin huts.
It also bitterly divided the community.
Part of the 2015 deal said Shell must clean up the mess, but that surprisingly is not what many people want.
Siitu Emmanuel, fisherman
"I believe the money earmarked is for the clean-up. This is for [the benefit of] the community therefore money should be paid to them"
Fisherman Siitu Emmanuel was one of the beneficiaries of the pay-out and spent it building houses for his children.
He says he is not in support of Shell doing the clean-up - instead he wants the money that was going to pay for it to be split amongst the community.
"I believe the money earmarked is for the clean-up. This is for [the benefit of] the community therefore money should be paid to them," he says.
And most people in Bodo agree with him, they would rather have money in their pockets than see the environmental problems sorted out.
The damage to the creeks has been so profound that many cannot even imagine returning to the life they had as fishermen before.
How clean is clean?
Clean-ups in places like Kogbara Dere have been attempted in the past but according to some residents they have not worked.
Comfort Gbode's farm is beside a pipeline which spilled oil in 2012 destroying much of her land.
Mrs Gbode and her husband still farm the land but the crops are stunted.
A clean-up was done but had little effect.
"They said they were cleaning the soil, I saw tippers coming in to dump new soil on top," she says. "But it's not clean, we still can't farm the land."
A core of activists is still arguing for the clean-up to happen. One of them, Sylvester Kogbara, had his home attacked by local youths opposed to it.
The conflict got so violent that in February four people were killed in clashes.
Father Abel Agbulu, Bodo's Catholic priest, was called in to stop the violence and understands better than most why it happened.
"They don't really trust any kind of negotiations or negotiators from the community," he says.
This is the land that has made many Nigerians super rich and yet he says many of his parishioners are surviving on one meal a day.
People here are used to seeing oil money go into the wrong hands.
Likewise, they believe the money spent by Shell to sort out the environmental damage will end up with corrupt local politicians and contractors.
For its part Shell is committed to undertake a clean-up operation but says it is too dangerous to begin work until the Bodo people are ready to welcome them.
They have been in talks with various groups for three years to get the work started.
But those talks have stalled repeatedly.
Dutch ambassador John Groffen acts as a mediator and explains why the process has been so difficult.
"We wanted to make sure that it wasn't happening in the old ways where contracts were being given out to contractors in an underhanded way," he says.
"In the end some parties, some contractors, some youths felt they were left out of the process and there was a push back from those groups."
Until the allocation of those contracts is sorted out, the creeks continue to rot.
Bodo is just one community, there are thousands like it in the Niger Delta.
The task of cleaning up is mammoth.
But the Nigerian government says it is determined that its own plans will work.
Environment Minister Amina Mohamed is aware of the murky local politics at play.
"A lot of the [issues involve] transparency," she says.
"It's not about sharing money. It's about contracting people to do work that needs to be done to clean up the Niger Delta."
But even if this does happen, it could be 30 years before these creeks are clean again.
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Neither the Greek government nor its eurozone partners want to see Greece leaving the eurozone - or a "Grexit" as it has become known. But if they cannot agree a way forward it could come to that. | To state the obvious, no country has left before.
There is no formal process in which a country can exit the eurozone so much of it would be improvisation.
On Monday night, Greece rejected a plan to extend its €240bn (£178bn) bailout, describing it as "absurd".
Greece is likely to run out of money if a deal is not reached before the end of February.
"We should extend the credit programme by a few months to have enough stability so that we can negotiate a new agreement between Greece and Europe," Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told Germany's ZDF.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed the Greek proposal, telling broadcaster ZDF on Tuesday evening: "It's not about extending a credit programme but about whether this bailout programme will be fulfilled, yes or no."
So what would the consequences of a Grexit be?
What would happen to Greece?
The previous Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, warned that living standards could fall by 80% within a few weeks of exit.
Unable to borrow from anyone (not even other European governments), the Greek government would simply run out of euros.
It would have to pay social benefits and civil servants' wages in IOUs (if it pays them at all) until a new non-euro currency can be introduced.
The government would not be able to repay its debts, which now amount to a total of about €320bn (£237bn), most of it owed to European governments and agencies and the International Monetary Fund.
The government would have to impose a freeze on withdrawals and on people taking money out of the country. This could lead to queues of ordinary Greeks trying to empty their bank accounts before they get converted into a new currency worth substantially less than the previous one.
In the longer run, Greece's economy should benefit from having a much more competitive exchange rate.
But the devaluation would not solve underlying problems in the economy, including poor tax collection and a struggle to control government spending.
There is also a real possibility of a surge in inflation.
Tax receipts would probably fall as the economy contracted, so the government might finance spending by printing money.
The likely currency depreciation would also be inflationary. It would make imported goods - which in Greece includes a lot of its food and medicine - more expensive.
What would happen to the wider eurozone?
There is a danger that a Greek departure from the euro might do wider economic damage, but the risk is generally thought to be much reduced since 2012, the last time such speculation was rife.
Actions by the European Central Bank are a key element behind this change.
First of all, there is the ECB's commitment to do "whatever it takes to preserve the euro".
That promise, made by the ECB's President Mario Draghi in July 2012, was later fleshed out to include a commitment to buy the debts of governments whose borrowing costs were affected by fears of them leaving the euro.
The ECB has not acted on that promise, but its existence was enough to calm eurozone financial markets. And the ECB could use this initiative if the fears were to re-emerge in the wake of a Greek exit.
There is also quantitative easing, the programme of buying government debt across the eurozone, announced by the ECB in January.
The scheme does not target financially vulnerable countries, but the expectation has already reduced government borrowing costs, which have stayed quite low for all eurozone countries (as implied by the bond market) except Greece.
Having said all that, if Greece really does go, financial contagion cannot be ruled out.
Nervous depositors in other struggling eurozone countries, such as Spain or Italy, may also move their money to the safety of a German bank account, sparking a banking crisis in southern Europe.
Confidence in other banks that have lent heavily to southern Europe - such as the French banks - could also be affected. The banking crisis could conceivably spread worldwide, just as it did in 2008.
What does it mean for businesses?
Greek businesses would face a legal and financial disaster. Some contracts governed by Greek law would be converted into a new currency, while other foreign law contracts would remain in euros. Many contracts could end up in legal disputes over whether they should be converted or not.
Greek companies who still owe big debts in euros to foreign lenders, but whose main sources of income are converted to a devalued non-euro currency, would be unable to repay their debts.
Many businesses would be left insolvent - their debts worth more than the value of everything they own - and would be facing bankruptcy. Foreign lenders and business partners of Greek companies would be looking at big losses.
In the wider eurozone, businesses, afraid for the euro's future, may cut investment. Faced with a barrage of bad news in the press, ordinary people may cut back their own spending. All of this could push the eurozone into recession.
The euro could lose value in the currency markets, providing some relief for the eurozone by making its exports more competitive in international trade. But the flipside is that imports from the rest of the world would become more expensive - especially the US, UK and Japan.
What about political consequences?
If Greece leaves, it undermines the idea that the euro project is irreversible and could give a boost to anti-euro and anti-European Union political forces in other countries.
In Spain, the left-wing anti-austerity party Podemos is already gaining ground, ahead of elections later this year. In Portugal, there is growing fatigue with austerity, and it also goes to the polls this year.
Under European law as it stands, abandoning the euro probably also means leaving the European Union. A lawyer at the European Central Bank wrote in 2009 that "withdrawal from EMU without a parallel withdrawal from the EU would be legally impossible".
But there would be a political aspect to the decision so perhaps some way of keeping Greece in the EU would be found, if all countries involved wanted it enough.
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Four people have been charged following an investigation into the shooting of three swans in Pembrokeshire. | Dyfed-Powys Police received reports that two swans had been shot dead at Withybush Woods, Haverfordwest on 22 October 2016.
A cygnet was also injured and had to be put down.
Three men, aged 32, 23 and 19, and a 13-year-old, have been charged with firearms offences and offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
They will appear before magistrates.
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Six years ago, a 12-year-old schoolgirl was abducted from her bedroom in the eastern Indian state of Bihar in the middle of the night. The unusual case prompted the country's top court to order federal detectives to take over the probe, but they have drawn a blank. So why do her parents still believe she is alive? | Soutik BiswasIndia correspondent
He sleepily shuffled to the verandah and looked outside. It was pitch black.
Atulya Chakravarty had woken up in the middle of a rainy night to use the toilet. The two energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs that always lit up the courtyard at night to keep out burglars were not burning.
That is unusual, he thought to himself.
He returned to the bedroom, woke up his wife, Moitri, and asked her whether she had forgotten to switch them on before going to bed. She mumbled she hadn't, pushed off the quilt and climbed out of bed.
The couple stepped out onto the verandah which ran alongside two bedrooms on the ground floor of their squat two-storied house in the city of Muzaffarpur.
Now, lit by torchlight, what they saw sent chills down their spine.
The two doors in the closed verandah that overlooked the courtyard were ajar. Fear woke them up completely.
The panicked mother ran into the adjoining bedroom where their 12-year-old daughter Navaruna had gone to sleep.
The frail and shy girl had spent the day at home. She had applied henna on her hands, watched cartoons on TV and had bread and milk for dinner before calling it a night.
The lights went on. A tidily arranged silk shawl, a crumpled pillow and the mosquito net on the antique bed were in their place. But the bed itself was empty.
"She's not here, she's not here!" Mrs Chakravarty screamed into the night.
Navaruna Chakravarty disappeared on the night of 18 September 2012, a Tuesday. Or was it in the wee hours of 19 September?
The girl 'vanishes'
Investigators believe at least one person wriggled into her room after wrenching open the rotting iron bars of her bedroom window - it overlooked a dingy lane that was the main path used to access the house.
He had possibly gagged and sedated the sleeping girl. Woken up violently, she had urinated in fright, leaving a wet patch on the sheets. Then he had carried her out to the verandah.
Investigators believe the abductor opened the two doors from inside the house to let more people in. They had helped carry the girl out through an opening in the back of the house - the front door was locked from inside.
There was a vehicle waiting on the main road, a few yards away. The girl and her abductors vanished into the drizzly night.
Navaruna's parents believe she's still alive and her captors are at large. Investigators believe she's dead but concede the captors are still roaming free.
A month after the incident, police arrested three men, including a distant, estranged relative of the Chakravartys.
The police said the three "seemed that they were hiding something", but found nothing incriminating to implicate them in the crime. They were released after nine months in prison.
On 26 November, local people found some skeletal remains in a neatly wrapped plastic bag in a fetid open drain close to the Chakravarty home. The family remembers there was some commotion, as municipal workers came, took out the bag and handed it over to the police.
Bone examination
Later that day, police told the family that they had found their daughter's bones. The parents refused to believe them and asked: Where's the evidence?
The following month, a state hospital carried out a forensic examination of the bones "attached to decomposed muscles and tissues" - a collarbone, a long upper arm long bone, bits of femur and tibia.
Doctors took away a molar tooth, a rib, a part of the thoracic vertebrae - a group of a dozen small bones that form the vertebral spine in the upper trunk - and some decomposed thigh muscles for DNA tests.
The examiner concluded that the bones "are of human in nature and belong to an individual, of a female, about 13-15 years of age who died 10 to 20 days before the date of receiving" the remains. The cause of death "could not be ascertained". The examiner said clothes found on "the decomposed body are suggestive of [a] teenage female".
The forensic doctor had examined a few bones - and certainly not a body - that arrived in a small box. The box also contained a black top, orange-and-white striped underwear and a black skirt, which the "body" was apparently wearing.
The Chakravartys have always believed that the bones do not belong to their daughter, and that the bag was "planted" in the drain. They agreed to DNA tests in 2014, but they say the results have not been shared with them.
"If the bones are indeed of my daughter, why are investigators not sharing the results of the DNA tests?" wonders Mr Chakravarty.
The federal crime fighting agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which took over the probe in 2014, said what had happened was a "blind kidnapping-cum-murder case". And the motive appeared to be a feud over the house in which the family has lived for decades, and from where Navaruna was taken away in the middle of the night.
Lawless city
Muzaffarpur, a teeming, exhausted city in one of India's poorest states, is known for cheap clothes, lacquered bangles and gangsters. Murders and abductions for ransom are common. Many are over plots which rival "land mafias", as they are called here, try to grab or buy cheap using coercion and fear. The streets are filled with dread for unescorted women who say they are stalked and harassed by men with impunity.
The Chakravartys had been long planning to sell their century-old tumbledown house in a congested but prime neighbourhood and move out of the city. Mr Chakravarty, now 66, is a retired pharmaceutical sales representative.
A fortnight before the kidnapping, he had signed an agreement to sell his property - the six-room house, a courtyard filled with palm, coconut and guava trees, a disused well and a small outhouse - for some 30 million rupees ($410,000; £320,000) to a local realtor, and accepted an advance of a little more than two million rupees.
As word of the impending sale swirled around the town, Mr Chakravarty says he came under pressure to cancel the deal and sell the house to a rival realtor. Even local policemen came home and asked him, he says, to cancel the deal.
"It was clear that the local police was in cahoots with a gang that wanted me to cancel the deal and sell it to another party. I was holding out. Then my daughter disappeared."
With her abduction, the house effectively became a crime scene, and the process of selling it ground to a halt.
Over the next few years, police questioned Navaruna's family, relatives, friends and teachers. They searched the Chakravarty residence, and took away two of her diaries. One, according to the police, had some photographs and stickers, while in another she had apparently "written about the qualities of a Dream Boy" without naming him. (They were clearly pursuing an unsuccessful "elopement" angle at the time.) They even inspected a septic tank in her house to check for any human remains, to rule out an "honour killing".
Teams fanned all over India, keeping an eye on crowded bus stands and railway stations. Police even staked out a hostel in Delhi where the couple's eldest daughter lived.
'Police involvement'
Mobile phone records of at least 100 people, including the family and the original suspects, were examined. Data from hundreds of thousands of phones from mobile towers of half a dozen telecom providers were examined for chatter in the neighbourhood on the night of the kidnapping. Raids were conducted at various places, including a local red-light district, to rule out trafficking.
"We have made sincere efforts to track down Navaruna. We have made intense examinations. We have carried out scientific investigations," the police told the court. The investigation clearly appeared to have hit the buffers.
Last month, the CBI told the Supreme Court that it had arrested six more suspects in April, questioned them for eight days and remanded them to judicial custody for 90 days before the court released them on bail. They had searched their homes and offices and found nothing suspicious.
But in a significant twist, the sleuth agency said it had questioned three senior police officers who were directly connected with the investigation when the incident happened.
In a report submitted to the top court last month, the agency said the first investigating officer and the head of the Muzaffarpur police station "have to go through narco tests and brain mapping test".
"Truth drug" test results have never been admissible in Indian courts but police say they have provided leads. In the tests, a suspect is injected with sodium penthanol, a chemical that numbs powers of perception and supposedly makes it difficult for a person to lie during questioning.
'Don't play games'
The agency also spoke about the "deceptive response" of the main policemen investigating the case, and pledged to explore the "bureaucrat-mafia nexus" in the crime.
Waiting for their daughter has taken a grim toll on the Chakravarty family. A heart patient, Mr Chakravarty nearly overdosed on sleeping pills after spending sleepless nights waiting for his daughter.
Every day, for two years after the incident, Mrs Chakravarty would visit the local police station and demand answers from the officer in charge.
"Don't play games with me," she would tell the policemen. "Give me my daughter back."
Over the years, Mr Chakravarty has turned from a grieving father to an angry, obsessive detective, trying to find clues about Navaruna's disappearance.
He has recorded four gigabytes of phone conversations with police officials on his mobile phones and "mysterious calls" he says he received from different parts of India until a month after his daughter's disappearance.
"I even heard my daughter's muffled voice in some of them," he says.
In his clear handwriting and in finely-vivid detail, he has written five exhaustive diaries, detailing his conversations with investigators. He's begun writing a book on the case, and has already completed 170 pages. He has written letters to politicians, judges, and the prime minister and president of India. He has personally visited the state's chief minister Nitish Kumar and complained about the snail-paced investigation.
He reads aloud obsessively from the diaries, almost enacting the scenes and intoning the voice of the detectives, as if to tell the world: "Listen to me. I know who's behind the kidnapping. Why is no one taking me seriously?"
More from Soutik
All this is triggered, says Mr Chakravarty, by a sense of guilt, grief and vengeance. There's guilt over his failure to protect his daughter; grief at her prolonged disappearance and vengeance "against the system which conspires to delay justice to common people".
"How can I go on living here like this," says Moitri Chakravarty. "How long can you live in this house of memories? When she returns home, we will leave the place."
The crumbling house is an oppressive museum of memories, carrying the full weight of darkness and tragedy. The Chakravartys seem to have even stopped cleaning the room that Navaruna spent most her time in, lest a speck of memory vanishes with the dust.
"Navaruna is everywhere, around us. Just look around and you will feel her presence," says Mrs Chakravarty.
Her school uniform - the maroon tie and skirt, the white cap - is packed inside a string basket which hangs on the wall outside. Her maroon cotton towel, now mouldy with age, hangs outside the door, untouched since she disappeared. In a corner stands a pink cycle which her father bought for her 20-minute ride to the convent school.
In the room, a glazed-glass cupboard is full of the missing girl's possessions. Plastic dolls gaze eerily through the dust. A small red purse with 200 rupees lies in a corner. The printed school schedule is pasted behind the door. A folded study table lies in a corner. In the room where she went missing, her pink dress hangs on a fraying clothesline; a white vest is strung up near the main door.
On the dressing table she shared with her mother, her tube of moisturizer is untouched. On her father's table, which she would sometimes use, there's a faded pink whistle, painting books with drawings of young girls and cartoon characters. And there are strips of medicine tablets that her father takes every day to keep his blood pressure in control and protect his heart.
It is a house of suffering and pain.
"Navaruna is coming back. So we have kept her things in place", Ms Chakravarty says, welling up.
"She's 18 now. I wonder how she looks."
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From Christmas performances to carol services, Santa's grotto and light displays, organisers of festive events have had to find imaginative ways to contend with Covid-19 rules. This has seen a rise in drive-in - and drive-through - alternatives. So how are four-wheeled solutions being used to help keep Christmas shows on the road? | By Katy LewisBBC News Online
The show where laughter is replaced by car horns
The Birmingham Stage Company would normally be touring the UK and playing to packed theatre audiences.
This year, it has produce a drive-in version of Horrible Christmas - and it has proved to be a hit.
Shows this weekend, in Chelmsford, Essex and Duxford, Cambridgeshire, were sold out within 48 hours.
Actor and director, Neal Foster, said it was proof that people needed to see a show - even if it was from their cars.
With the stage on a lorry and the action broadcast on big screen, sound is transmitted directly to vehicles through the car radio.
The production, a seasonal take on the Horrible Histories series and ironically about a boy trying to save Christmas, is "fundamentally the same" as its indoor version, Mr Foster said, but shorter and without an interval.
Challenges include scenes being reframed to work on a screen and actors not being able to hear any laughter from an audience, who beep car horns to show appreciation.
"That's the only way we know they are with us," he said, "so you have to have the confidence to keep going and know that the audience is getting it."
Cast and crew are in a bubble of 12 and will not have contact with anyone else for five weeks, including over Christmas.
"Many people involved in the show haven't had a job since March so they are willing to make those sacrifices," Mr Foster said.
"We're doing it for ourselves, for our industry and for audiences, because for a lot of people, a show is an integral part of Christmas."
The drive-through Christmas grotto
Visitors to Aldenham Country Park, near Elstree in Hertfordshire, are met with "elf and safety" checks when they arrive at the Christmas drive-through grotto.
After making their way around a decorated festive field on the 100-acre site, they get to Father Christmas' living room.
Usually, children sit down for a face-to-face chats - not in 2020.
Events manager, Callen Flynn, said the team looked at what they could do within the regulations so it was not just a grotto where people wear masks.
Families stay in their car for a festive performance, before children choose a Covid-safe present.
"They play on the theme a bit, such as the elves can't get too near Santa and they throw the present into the car after sanitising their hands," Mr Flynn said.
"It's fun and playful but it was important to us to have a message explaining why the children can't see Santa in the normal way this year."
As a not-for-profit organisation, he said it was "quite a big risk".
"It would have been easier not to do anything but we thought let's not take the easy route," he said.
"We've definitely done the right thing - everyone has absolutely loved it."
Christmas lights from the 'comfort' of cars
For the first time in 27 years, the public was invited to drive through the pedestrianised streets of Ipswich town centre.
The free tickets were all quickly snapped up for the Ipswich Borough Council scheme, which is normally only available to Blue Badge holders.
The authority organised a virtual light switch-on in November, but Sunday evening's event saw vehicles drive slowly from Major's Corner to Museum Street in pre-booked 30-minute slots.
Councillor Sarah Barber said this year had "been a really challenging time for everyone" and the council was "pleased to be able to bring some festive cheer to people".
"We know that due to Covid-19 there are lots of people who have spent time shielding and self-isolating throughout the year and are still trying to limit their contact with other people," she said.
"By opening the event up to all, we are able to offer some of those people a chance to experience an Ipswich Christmas from the comfort of their own vehicles."
A 'fun and festive' drive-in carol service
On a wet Sunday afternoon, a free drive-in carol service saw about 300 vehicles turn up at Chelmsford City Racecourse to support the farming community, one that has been particularly hit by the isolation of lockdowns.
Cars were directed to a measured-out space facing a stage formed by two lorries with a backdrop of decorated tractors and a life-sized nativity scene.
Carols led by singer Nancy May were relayed directly to cars and people could either sing in their vehicles or outside, as long as they stayed socially-distanced in their bubble.
The Rev Janet Nicholls, from the Diocese of Chelmsford, said she wanted to make things "fun and festive" with some "very special holy moments" and the service had been "extremely well-received".
"I was amazed that, even with everyone in their cars, an atmosphere of Christmas joy and hope absolutely filled Chelmsford City Racecourse," she said.
"It was a delight to lead a service that lifted spirits in such challenging times.
"You have to have a vision of what you want to offer people and then look at what the rules are and find a way of working safely to offer that."
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Shortly after the end of World War Two a group of young Holocaust survivors was flown to the UK to recuperate. Thirty of them were housed in the Berkshire town of Ascot, famous for the pomp of the Royal Ascot horse races, where they made an incongruous sight, writes Rosie Whitehouse. | Margaret Nutley remembers her first meeting with a group of unfamiliar boys on the Ascot racecourse. It was autumn 1945, and they were playing football, wearing striped jackets from a concentration camp.
"The course was not fenced off as it is today and us local children used it as a playground. One day I went up with my friends to muck about and there they were. They were just there, playing like the rest of us.
"The boys showed us their tattoos and talked about what had happened to them, but not boastfully."
Nutley, now 85, noticed that they were "happy people", despite what they had been through.
"People don't understand. They were not downtrodden and broken but proud that they had survived, and not shy to say so," she says.
"They were very friendly, chatty… They were the lucky boys."
When Nutley recently shared her memories in a group chat on Facebook, she was ridiculed for suggesting that three boys had been wearing their striped camp outfits. But her recall is sharp, and in fact many concentration camp survivors kept items of clothing as proof of what they had endured. They were proud of the jackets and trousers that symbolised their survival and it seems likely that they wore them to identify their team when they played against local boys.
Two of the teenagers may well have been 13-year-old Ivor Perl and his 15-year-old brother, Alec. Born in the small town of Mako in southern Hungary, they had survived Auschwitz and a death march to Dachau.
Then, in the autumn of 1945, they had been flown to Southampton and brought to recuperate in Ascot.
Perl, who now lives in Essex, remembers that he met some girls on Ascot racecourse and "took a fancy" to them, but he cannot remember their names.
The brothers were among several hundred children, mostly boys, who were offered a helping hand by the Central British Fund (CBF), the same organisation that had arranged the Kindertransport bringing 10,000 predominantly Jewish children to Britain in the months before World War Two.
At least 1.5 million Jewish children had been murdered in the Holocaust, but after the war the CBF lobbied the government to grant visas to the few thousand who had survived.
The Home Office agreed to allow 732 into Britain for two years' rehabilitation - but only on the condition that they would not cost the taxpayer a penny. The money to care for the teenagers was raised by the Jewish community.
After liberation at Dachau in April 1945, Perl was skin and bones and close to death from typhus. Once he had recovered, he and his brother prepared to go home to see if their parents and seven siblings had survived. But when informed by the Red Cross that they were the sole survivors of their family, they thought again and decided instead to go to Palestine, which was then under British control.
There was a problem with this plan too, though.
"The authorities caring for us in Germany explained that the British were blocking immigration to Palestine and we should apply for visas to the UK," Perl says.
He jumped at the idea. "England was like the golden land," he says. And it was an opportunity to get out of Germany.
The boys were flown from Munich in Stirling bombers and taken to Woodcote House, a large manor opposite Ascot racecourse with large gardens full of rhododendron bushes. It belonged to a member of the local council and had been used to house Jewish evacuees during the war.
In charge of the 30 boys there was Manny Silver, a 22-year-old Jew from Leeds. Silver, whose father had been born in Poland, found the boys little different from himself except that the 21 miles of the English Channel had saved him from their fate.
Silver had no training and no assistance from psychologists but in his team were young German Jews who had arrived on the Kindertransport several years earlier.
Rehabilitation started with the basics. The boys had to be taught table manners. Their experiences meant that every mealtime they sneaked slices of bread from the table to hide in their pockets and under the pillows of their beds, and they had to be persuaded that they did not need to do this.
The emphasis was on the future and providing them with the skills to build a new life. The languages used in Woodcote House were German and Yiddish but the boys were issued with English textbooks donated by the British Council. Silver recalled, many years later, that they "had a devouring need to learn".
For Perl, life in England was very different from his upbringing in an Orthodox religious family.
"We did not know what life was really about. I had not seen double decker buses and traffic lights. It was all new!" he says.
"Religion is about restrictions and the lack of someone to tell us what to do was also liberating."
He remembers that they went on trips to the cinema and were given bikes to explore the locality.
One of the letters he keeps in a file that is clearly precious to him describes him as "a cheeky boy."
After Woodcote closed in 1947, some of the boys, including Perl and his brother, remained in the UK. But nearly all wanted to go to Palestine, Silver recalled, and when war broke out in 1948 many did, to fight for the new state of Israel.
Perl also considered signing up but was persuaded not to risk his life by one of his teachers. "I thought 'Palestine can wait' as, above anything, I wanted to taste life," he says.
Eighty-five-year-old Irene Baldock's mother, Martha Turner, worked at Woodcote. The family were from London's East End and they had settled in Ascot when their shop in Hackney was destroyed in the Blitz. Her younger sister, Dorrie, spent a lot of time at the hostel playing table tennis with the boys.
Sammy Diamond was one of them, Baldock says, and he was "sweet on Dorrie and spent a lot of time at our home".
Both were 18 in the winter of 1945/46, Diamond having lied about his age in order to get one of the visas to the UK, which were intended for under-16s.
He had been in the camps of Buchenwald and Theresienstadt and had flown to the UK from Prague in August 1945 with 300 other young survivors.
According to Baldock Diamond was "very exuberant and had a good sense of humour. He had short dark curly hair and a happy face." He had been born Samuel Diament in the industrial city of Lodz, now in central Poland, and Baldock says his upbringing was similar to hers.
"Our family was much as his had been and we made him welcome. My mother had worked for a Jewish tailor and we had lots of Jewish friends and neighbours in Hackney.
"He once came back from America where he became a tailor as he wanted to see my mother. He had been separated from his mother in the camp."
Baldock says she would love to know what happened to him and if he had a family.
As children, she and Nutley were both taken by their mothers to see the shocking newsreels of the liberation of Belsen, which led to the Woodcote boys becoming known locally as the "Belsen Boys".
Today both women say they are concerned about history repeating itself. Baldock says she knows children now learn a lot about World War One but fears they are not taught enough about World War Two. If they were, she thinks, it would help them understand the contemporary world, and enable them to see the danger of intolerance.
For his part, Ivor Perl, who has spoken widely about his experiences in schools, is concerned that understanding of the Holocaust in Britain is too narrow.
"People always ask me if I hate Germans, but it was the Hungarian boys I used to play football with in my home town who rounded us up into the ghetto with sticks," he says.
One person who was fascinated to read Nutley's post about the Woodcote boys, is Elizabeth Yates, clerk of Ascot's parish council - who moved to the area from Mill Hill in North London 18 years ago.
"This is not an area normally associated with this kind of tale," she says. "People are always surprised when they discover I am Jewish and often say, 'I didn't think we had people like you in the area!'"
She is keen for the story to be used in local schools, partly because her own children's Holocaust education - which began with the two of them being invited up on to the stage at a school assembly along with two German boys - left room for improvement.
"The teacher gave a brief outline of the Holocaust, and as a result one of the German boys was beaten up in the playground," she says.
"I think we can and should improve on that in Ascot.
"The rediscovery of this story offers us a unique opportunity that should not be missed. Ascot offered the boys hope and a new life. That is a positive message to get across in the present climate."
Photographs by Rachel Judah, unless otherwise indicated
UPDATE, October 2018: : This publication of this story helped give rise to the Ascot Holocaust Education Project, which aims to promote understanding of the Holocaust through the story of the 30 survivors cared for at Woodcote House.
More on this subject
After World War Two, the BBC attempted to find relatives of children who had survived the Holocaust - they had lost their parents but it was believed they might have family in Britain. "Captive Children, an appeal from Germany," the radio broadcast begins. One by one, for five minutes, the presenter asks relatives of 12 children to come forward.
With each name comes a short but devastating summary of the child's ordeal under the Nazis.
Read: Tracing the children of the Holocaust
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A transgender woman has died in a men's jail, just weeks after another successfully argued to be moved to an all-female prison. A gender recognition certificate could have prevented either prisoner being in a men's jail but the process of applying for it has been called humiliating. So does the document protect trans rights or infringe them? | By Jennifer MeierhansBBC News Online
Vicky Thompson, 21, was found dead at Armley jail in Leeds just weeks after a campaign saw 26-year-old Tara Hudson moved out of HMP Bristol Prison.
Although both women had identified as female for many years, neither held a gender recognition certificate.
The decision on which prison to send a person to is currently based on legal gender determined by a birth certificate or a gender recognition certificate.
According to Luke Anderson, who was born Laura and began transitioning aged 27, the certificate should be scrapped.
The chef from Cheshire won TV reality show Big Brother in 2012 and married wife Jamie-Lee two years later. They are now undergoing IVF and hope to become parents.
He said: "Being trans doesn't define me and I don't need a scrap of paper to say I'm a man.
"My wife and I want to have children. If we are lucky enough to have a child I will be the father because I love and cherish them.
"Although my name will be on the birth certificate I don't need that piece of paper to prove I'm the father.
"So why should I and others go begging cap in hand to a panel of judges who don't know us and request that they grant us a gender recognition certificate?
"No-one has the right to tell you who you are.
"In these days of gender fluidity, people should live the lives they wish to lead, without being suppressed by a meaningless scrap of official paper."
Jackie Jessiman, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives who specialises in transgender cases, says the certificate provides all the rights appropriate to a gender - such as the right to retire and receive state benefits at a certain age - and says for that reason the government needs to be informed of a change of gender.
"By obtaining a gender recognition certificate, you are entitled to a new birth certificate, which in many situations is required to be produced," said Ms Jessiman.
Stephanie Booth is a trans woman who is firmly in favour of the certificate, as she believes it "makes life so much easier".
Stephanie was a wealthy businessman and a married father-of-three named Keith before she underwent transgender surgery in 1983.
She does not have a gender recognition certificate because it did not exist at the time - instead she got a new birth certificate.
She believes she was the first trans woman in the UK to be jailed, when in 1989 she was sentenced to 12 weeks for a video licensing offence.
"I was sent to Askham Grange women's prison near York in 1989 so Vicky Thompson and Tara Hudson being sent to men's prisons seemed very odd," said Ms Booth.
"Legally I am a woman, but I am proud to identify myself publicly as a trans woman, but there are those that would not wish to do so.
"For those that need to completely hide their past, amending your birth certificate would offer certainty.
"The amended birth certificate makes life so much easier. You are even assigned to a special tax office that handles MI5 operatives but the staff cannot access your details."
Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for the government to allow people to self-define their gender - as permitted through the Republic of Ireland's Gender Recognition Act, passed in July .
But former West Midlands MEP Nikki Sinclaire said she did not think people should be able to self-define their gender.
"I transitioned more than 25 years ago so the law was different, there was no legal definition at all. So when the Gender Recognition Act came in I welcomed it," said Ms Sinclaire.
"Looking at it now I do feel some of the hoops you have to jump through can seem excessive.
"Before my surgery I had to live as a woman for two years and that's what you have to do before you can get a certificate.
"But I've known people who have changed their mind in that two years.
"I've known someone who bypassed that by going abroad for surgery and ended up regretting it.
"The gender recognition certificate is an understanding that someone was born in the wrong body and they have taken steps to match their body with their mind.
"The system of getting a certificate needs to be a little more streamlined but I don't believe you should self define."
The government has announced it is re-examining its policy on transgender prisoners following Vicky Thompson's death.
The certificate was previously debated at the Transgender Equality Inquiry in the House of Commons on 28 October.
Jo Churchill, member of the Women and Equalities committee, asked minister Caroline Dinenage: "The process of applying for a gender recognition certificate has been described as protracted, bureaucratic, costly and humiliating. Do you agree?"
Mrs Dinenage, minister for women, equalities and family justice, said: "We were quite groundbreaking internationally in introducing this form of legislation.
"Since then, we have seen other countries around the world - most recently Ireland - come up with legislation that differs from ours, in the sense that people can self refer, people do not have to wait two years and there are also discussions around ages. These are all really important experiences for us to learn from."
A campaign saw Tara Hudson moved to a female prison within days, but the inquiry heard there were about 100 trans prisoners in the UK whose rights were at risk.
Mrs Dinenage said: "We want to do more on this, which is why there is prison service guidance at the moment, but that is being updated to take into consideration everything we already know and everything we are learning about the trans population in our prisons. That new guidance is in draft form at the moment and will be issued, hopefully, before Christmas."
For Vicky Thompson the new guidance will come too late.
Alex Kaye, from SafeT, which represents transgender people, said he hoped her death would bring about a change in the law.
"Any woman would not be happy to be in a male prison regardless of any gender identity history," he said.
Ms Booth said: "Vicky told friends she would commit suicide if she was sent to a men's jail. This to me means that the law handed out a virtual death sentence.
"I was sent to Askham women's prison but had I been sent to a male jail I think I would have probably done the same thing.
"That our justice system in 2015 be so callous is very troubling.
"Today is the Transgender Day Of Remembrance when internationally we remember all trans people who have lost their lives as a result of war, violence and suicide. How ironic."
And Mr Anderson said: "The gender recognition certificate is outdated. We all have a basic human rights, transgender or not.
"Trans people go through rigorous psychiatric scrutiny when beginning their journey to make sure it's the correct path to take, this surely is gender recognition enough.
"To continue ignoring the rights of transgender people by putting them in the opposite sex's prisons is barbaric and very ignorant.
"Recently Vicky Thompson was a victim of this stupidity, she lost her life. Please let this be the end of the law defining your gender... Before we lose more."
The standard route to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
Applicants must:
Other routes apply to those who are married or in a legal partnership, or who have documents to prove their gender has been legally accepted in some other countries.
The application is assessed by a gender recognition panel which can ask for further proof or information.
If a certificate is granted, the successful applicant can apply for new birth, marriage or civil partnership certificates.
If the certificate is refused it may be possible to appeal to the courts.
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A feature of newly devolved income tax powers is that forecast revenue and actual tax take has to be reconciled, and that means big adjustments from next year. Blaming austerity or mismanagement of the economy is some way wide of the mark. This has more to do with dodgy data, and unexpected success in collecting tax. However, there is a strong case for more sophisticated management of Holyrood's budgets, particularly as some welfare spending is devolved. | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
A young scientist stunned us recently with the first ever picture of a black hole, somewhere far out in space. It was probably based on very clever science and maths.
But even if it wasn't, who was to contradict her? Who can offer an alternative vision of a black hole?
Black holes fascinate and bamboozle us, because they are mind-bendingly difficult to comprehend. That's why they fit easily into headlines and what passes for political debate.
So when you hear or read there's a £1bn black hole facing the Scottish government, take special care. It's an impossibly big number to comprehend for those more used to a household budget. And no-one else can disprove a mind-bending negative.
The hole in question in recent days consists of changes to the budgets with which Derek Mackay, the finance secretary at Holyrood, has to work from next April.
He says they have opened up because of austerity being imposed from Westminster. His Tory opponent, Murdo Fraser - minding the back of said Westminster government - says they are a measure of the SNP's mismanagement of the economy.
Now, austerity can be blamed for stuff. The SNP may or may not be mismanaging the economy. But it seems neither politician is right about these numbers.
The culprit looks more like dodgy data. And that's the price to be paid when you set up a largely new system of devolved taxation. Let's see if I can explain.
Coffers
Income tax revenue is providing more than £11bn for the Scottish government this year. The figures on which the budget is based were set by the Scottish Fiscal Commission last year, derived from its best guess of what revenue could be expected to roll in.
That guess had to take a stab at how many taxpayers there are in different bands of earning, and how much might slip out of the country to avoid the extra 1% being charged on higher earners in Scotland, when compared with the rest of the UK.
Because tax has not been handled this way before, and because there hasn't been this differential within the UK, quite a lot of it is informed guesswork. And small assumptions can make a big difference when the total adds up to more than £11 billion.
Now then: while the Scottish Rate of Income Tax brings spondulicks rolling into Mr Mackay's coffers, the Westminster government is pulling back on the amount it sends up the M1 to Holyrood in the block grant. In a formula agreed by both governments, it withholds the amount that would otherwise be heading north if the tax had not been devolved.
So if the Scottish government rakes in less or more than Westminster's tax choices would have done, through having different tax rates and different growth, then Scottish ministers have to deal with the consequences - either a shortfall on the Westminster baseline, or a surplus.
In addition to the block grant, the Treasury adds funds to pay for devolved powers to handle some aspects of welfare spending. More on that later.
Under-generous
And (here we're getting to the important bit for this week) the Treasury adjusts future funds in the block grant if it finds that past funding has been over- or under-generous. That is a calculation of how much the forecast out-turns for income tax collection varied from the actual out-turn.
This summer, we will get the full and final figure for the amount of Scottish income tax raised in 2017-18. It is expected (yes, it's still a forecast) that it will be £229m less than the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecast it would be.
If that turns out to be right, then the block grant for 2020-21, starting next April, will have £229m less than it would otherwise have done.
In summer of 2020, we'll find out precisely how much was raised in 2018-19. The Scottish Fiscal Commission's current forecast for that (less likely to be accurate now than the one for 2017-18) is £608m.
And the forecast shortfall from the current financial year, 2019-20, will only become clear in summer of 2021, then to mean an adjustment forecast at £188m for 2022-23.
Let's stop a moment and get these numbers in perspective. They add up to just over £1bn. That makes for a good headline. What does it mean? Not much. Public finance is best understood one year at a time.
So let's take the biggest of these one-year numbers: £608m. This year, the Scottish government total budget, including new welfare spending and pensions, comes to around £42bn. So that very large figure of £608m is one pound in 70.
Not much then? Well, look at it another way. It's around half of all the funding for Scottish policing during the current financial year.
Austerity
To return to the "consolidation" figure, or block grant adjustment, does it have to be a shortfall? No. It's very likely that there will always be an adjustment to be made because the forecast is unlikely ever to be bang on target.
But as the Fiscal Commission gets more informed and smarter about the behaviour of the economy and taxation system, the gaps between forecast and actual out-turn should get smaller. And they should be, theoretically, as likely to turn out as surpluses as they are shortfalls.
Why, you might well ask, has this gap opened up so wide, and only become clearer now? The biggest cause of the change is that the Office for Budget Responsibility, forecasting for the whole UK economy and Westminster budgets, reckons that tax revenue has come in ahead of previous expectations.
That kiboshes the argument that this has to do with austerity. But it does raise the question of why a (sort of) windfall to the UK Treasury from income tax payers doesn't seem to be applying to Scottish taxpayers.
One theory I offer is that more assertive tax collection from higher earners - tackling tax avoidance measures such as Employee Benefit Trusts, for instance (remember them?) - is having a disproportionate effect on the part of Britain where most higher earners live.
Stuttering
As if to confuse us, the Scottish Fiscal Commission published this week, in the same document, a sharply reduced forecast for growth of total output from the Scottish economy. For this year, it's down from last December's forecast of 1.2% to only 0.8%, rising to merely 0.9% next year, before it rises slowly above 1% out to 2024-25.
The main reason is given as Brexit uncertainty, including low business investment, productivity gains that are not only weak but weaker than the UK, and cautious consumer spending. The world economy is stuttering a bit as well, as trade wars loom large.
That is now significantly below the growth rate expected for the UK as a whole. But the gap is largely explained by immigration. If you adjust for Gross Domestic Product per person, the rest of the UK - with a faster-growing population - doesn't look like it's growing that much faster.
This forecast is based on an orderly Brexit at the end of October - taking the bold assumption, as the Scottish Fiscal Commission has to do, that government policy is what the government will do. (No, they don't sound too convinced by that either.). Dame Susan Rice, as chairwoman, says a "no deal" Brexit brings with it a "substantial risk to the downside" of these forecasts.
If, like me, you leapt to the instant assumption that lower growth means lower income tax receipts, you and I would be wrong, at least on this occasion. Lower growth, while we've got very low unemployment, is being accompanied by higher income tax receipts, apparently because real wages have started to rise.
So when an opposition MSP says this "black hole" budget shortfall has to do with SNP policy, he or she is missing most of the picture. It is mainly because of a) a better understanding of how much Scottish income tax has been raising and will raise b) strengthening of UK tax collection and c) it comes despite a modest rise in expected Scottish tax collection.
Get Used To It
If you're still with me (well done), what the Scottish Fiscal Commission is saying to the Scottish government is that volatile revenue is the new normal for Holyrood. And when they say "get used to it", it's not said glibly. They mean: Seriously, Get Used To It. This has to be managed, in a way that Holyrood ministers and their officials, plus scrutinising MSP committees, have not had to do until now.
And while these block grant adjustments, or consolidations, are going to throw (sometimes big, awkward) numbers at the finance secretary every year, the next big fiscal locomotive hurtling up the East Coast Line is welfare spending.
In the current year, that is less than half a billion pounds. Next year, they reckon (another forecast), it will be more like £3.5 billion. A seven-fold increase.
What is different is that much of the benefits budget is demand-led and harder to predict than spending on public services.
That is, you can forecast fairly accurately what it's going to cost to employ police officers and teachers, and how much it will cost to build a given road or hospital. But benefits are claimed by people when they become eligible for them, and if they know how to claim. That eligibility changes as the labour market flexes. And claim rates change when governments and others draw attention entitlements.
Baby grants
The Scottish government - and who could argue with this? - wants to be open about entitlements, and humane in the way people are assessed. But that comes at a cost, and it's one which is illustrated in the latest report by the Scottish Fiscal Commission.
The small changes to devolved welfare spending so far include a new grant for Pregnancy and Baby Care. Eligibility included parents whose children were recently born, so there was catching up to do.
The previous, equivalent grant had 4,000 applications in Scotland in a year. Helped by social media marketing, the newly-designed Scottish grant got 4,000 applications in its first day.
In its first year, the benefit cost 67% more than had been expected. The total was a small sum in the greater scheme of things. But it illustrates the risks of a demand-led system, when ministers want to sound, and to be, relatively generous.
That £3.5bn of extra budget may not meet raised expectations. And if not carefully forecast and managed, responding to the demand could eat into budgets for other spending departments.
A further element of uncertainty in tax revenue is VAT. Holyrood is not getting powers to set and collect it, but to have assigned to its budget the amount that is calculated to be raised in Scotland each year. That should come to more than £6bn.
The formula for calculating the VAT due to Scotland has been agreed between governments. But the data to plug into that formula is far from robust. Experts have been saying for months what Derek Mackay now acknowledges - that there's too much risk attached to the methodology, when small adjustments can have colossal effects, by the hundreds of millions of pounds. It looks like VAT assignment is on hold.
Maturity
To plug looming gaps, the Scottish government has borrowing powers, but these are constrained within the terms of the new devolution arrangements. Even if they were not, they would be constrained by the operations of the bond markets - as the SNP's Sustainable Growth Commission sought to explain to gung-ho enthusiasts for winning independence and going on a borrowing spree.
The current borrowing powers are being deployed, for capital projects. They can't cover the scale of the gap in spending that results from these block grant adjustments, or consolidations.
So tough decisions lie ahead - tax increases, spending cuts, spending postponements, or a firmer push on public sector efficiency through reform.
Is this a special problem for Scotland? It's clearly new, and within the UK's financial set-up, it's got unusual dimensions. But it's more about Scotland joining the world in which governments have to make choices about taxation and to live with the consequences.
At 20 years of age, the Scottish Parliament may not have reached the independence some wish for it, but it is reaching the age of far greater maturity.
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There's a shortage of women in the Faroe Islands. So local men are increasingly seeking wives from further afield - Thailand and the Philippines in particular. But what's it like for the brides who swap the tropics for this windswept archipelago? | By Tim EcottTorshavn
When Athaya Slaetalid first moved from Thailand to the Faroe Islands, where winter lasts six months, she would sit next to the heater all day:
"People told me to go outside because the sun was shining but I just said: 'No! Leave me alone, I'm very cold.'"
Moving here six years ago was tough for Athaya at first, she admits. She'd met her husband Jan when he was working with a Faroese friend who had started a business in Thailand.
Jan knew in advance that bringing his wife to this very different culture, weather and landscape would be challenging.
Find out more
"I had my concerns, because everything she was leaving and everything she was coming to were opposites," he admits. "But knowing Athaya, I knew she would cope."
There are now more than 300 women from Thailand and Philippines living in the Faroes. It doesn't sound like a lot, but in a population of just 50,000 people they now make up the largest ethnic minority in these 18 islands, located between Norway and Iceland.
In recent years the Faroes have experienced population decline, with young people leaving, often in search of education, and not returning. Women have proved more likely to settle abroad. As a result, according to Prime Minister Axel Johannesen, the Faroes have a "gender deficit" with approximately 2,000 fewer women than men.
This, in turn, has lead Faroese men to look beyond the islands for romance. Many, though not all, of the Asian women met their husbands online, some through commercial dating websites. Others have made connections through social media networks or existing Asian-Faroese couples.
For the new arrivals, the culture shock can be dramatic.
Officially part of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Faroes have their own language (derived from Old Norse) and a very distinctive culture - especially when it comes to food. Fermented mutton, dried cod and occasional whale meat and blubber are typical of the strong flavours here, with none of the traditional herbs and spices of Asian cooking.
And, although it never gets as cold as neighbouring Iceland, the wet, cool climate is a challenge for many people. A good summer's day would see the temperature reach 16°C.
Athaya is a confident woman with a ready smile who now works in the restaurant business in Torshavn, the Faroese capital. She and Jan share a cosy cottage on the banks of a fjord surrounded by dramatic mountains. But she's honest about how difficult swapping countries was at first.
"When our son Jacob was a baby, I was at home all day with no-one to talk to," she says.
"The other villagers are older people and mostly don't speak English. People our age were out at work and there were no children for Jacob to play with. I was really alone. When you stay at home here, you really stay at home. I can say I was depressed. But I knew it would be like that for two or three years."
Then, when Jacob started kindergarten, she began working in catering and met other Thai women.
"That was important because it gave me a network. And it gave me a taste of home again."
Krongrak Jokladal felt isolated at first, too, when she arrived from Thailand. Her husband Trondur is a sailor and works away from home for several months at a time.
She started her own Thai massage salon in the centre of Torshavn. "You can't work regular hours with a baby, and although my parents-in-law help out with childcare, running the business myself means I can choose my hours," she says.
It's a far cry from Krongrak's previous job as head of an accountancy division in Thai local government.
But she is unusual in that she runs her own business. Even for many highly educated Asian women in the Faroes, the language barrier means they have to take lower-level work.
Axel Johannesen, the prime minister, says helping the newcomers overcome this is something the government takes seriously.
"The Asian women who have come in are very active in the labour market, which is good," he says. "One of our priorities is to help them learn Faroese, and there are government programmes offering free language classes."
Kristjan Arnason recalls the effort his Thai wife Bunlom, who arrived in the Faroes in 2002, put into learning the language.
"After a long day at work she would sit reading the English-Faeroese dictionary," he says. "She was extraordinarily dedicated."
"I was lucky," Bunlom adds. "I told Kristjan that if I was moving here he had to find me a job. And he did, and I was working with Faeroese people in a hotel so I had to learn how to talk to them."
In an age when immigration has become such a sensitive topic in many parts of Europe, Faeroes society seems remarkably accepting of foreign incomers.
"I think it helps that the immigrants we have seen so far are mostly women," says local politician Magni Arge, who also sits in the Danish parliament, "They come and they work and they don't cause any social problems.
"But we've seen problems when you have people coming from other cultures into places like the UK, in Sweden and in other parts of Europe - even Denmark. That's why we need to work hard at government level to make sure we don't isolate people and have some kind of sub-culture developing."
But Antonette Egholm, originally from the Philippines, hasn't encountered any anti-immigrant sentiment. I met her and her husband as they moved into a new flat in Torshavn.
"People here are friendly, she explains, "and I've never experienced any negative reactions to my being a foreigner. I lived in metro Manila and there we worried about traffic and pollution and crime. Here we don't need to worry about locking the house, and things like healthcare and education are free. At home we have to pay. And here you can just call spontaneously at someone's house, it's not formal. For me, it feels like the Philippines in that way."
Likewise, her husband Regin believes increasing diversity is something that should be welcomed not feared.
"We actually need fresh blood here," he adds, "I like seeing so many children now who have mixed parentage. Our gene pool is very restricted, and it's got to be a good thing that we welcome outsiders who can have families."
He acknowledges that he's had occasional ribbing from some male friends who jokingly ask if he pressed "enter" on his computer to order a wife. But he denies he and Antonette have encountered any serious prejudice as a result of their relationship.
Athaya Slaetalid tells me that some of her Thai friends have asked why she doesn't leave her small hamlet, and move to the capital, where almost 40% of Faroe Islanders now live. They say Jacob would have more friends there.
"No, I don't need to do that," she says. "I'm happy here now, not just surviving but making a life for our family.
"Look," she says, as we step into the garden overlooking the fjord. "Jacob plays next to the beach. He is surrounded by hills covered in sheep and exposed to nature. And his grandparents live just up the road. There is no pollution and no crime. Not many kids have that these days. This could be the last paradise on earth."
Tim Ecott is the author of Stealing Water, Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World and Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Luscious Substance.
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The trial of two men charged with murdering Michaela McAreavey is continuing to hear evidence from a police officer who arrested one of the accused the day after the killing. | Mrs McAreavey, a 27-year-old teacher, was found dead during her honeymoon at the Legends Hotel in January 2011.
Hotel workers Avinash Treebhoowoon, 30, and Sandip Moneea, 42, deny murder. On Tuesday, an officer who accompanied Mr Treebhoowoon from the hotel to a police station was accused of "lying". He denied this.
During Monday's hearing at the Supreme Court in Mauritius, the officer was robustly questioned about why a journey from the hotel with Mr Treebhoowoon had taken up to three hours when it should have only taken 30 mintes.
The court once again heard a complaint from the 30-year-old accused recorded the day after his arrest in which he claimed to have been tortured by the police.
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China's army in Hong Kong has released a three-minute video showing troops carrying out "anti-riot" exercises, in what is being seen as a thinly veiled warning to pro-democracy protesters. | The video, posted to social media, begins with a soldier shouting: "All consequences are at your own risk."
Tensions are high in Hong Kong after weeks of anti-government protests.
On Wednesday, more than 40 activists appeared in court charged with rioting, after Sunday's protest turned violent.
If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, is part of China but enjoys unique freedoms not seen on the mainland.
China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has so far stayed out of the protests that have gone on for eight consecutive weekends and brought parts of central Hong Kong to a standstill - leaving the territory's police to deal with the unrest.
But at a reception to mark the 92nd anniversary of the PLA on Wednesday, the commander of the Chinese army's garrison in Hong Kong said the protests had "seriously threatened the life and safety of Hong Kong citizens, and violated the bottom line of 'one country, two systems'.
"This should not be tolerated and we express our strong condemnation," Chen Daoxiang said, in comments reported by the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper.
The army video, posted to the Chinese social media site Weibo, shows lines of troops carrying shields and batons performing anti-riot drills. It showcases tanks, rocket launchers, water cannon and barbed wire before featuring heavily armed troops descending from helicopters and shooting their way through the streets and into people's homes.
Protesters can also be seen being arrested and walked, with their arms tied behind their backs, to "detention points".
Observers believe the video was likely to have been filmed in Hong Kong because the local Cantonese dialect is spoken, and it features a Hong Kong taxi and a flag almost identical to one used by Hong Kong police.
The BBC's Celia Hatton, in Beijing, says earlier posts from the Chinese garrison in Hong Kong showed patriotic images of smiling soldiers. The increasingly aggressive posturing featured in the latest video will fuel concerns that China could eventually use military force to end violent protests.
But the Chinese government is still refusing to answer such concerns directly, our correspondent notes. When asked about the video, the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing said only that the military would be able to interpret its message.
The demonstrations in Hong Kong began in March over a controversial bill that would have enabled extraditions to mainland China.
The government has since suspended the bill, but protesters want it withdrawn completely.
The demonstrations have also broadened into a wider movement, with activists demanding democratic reform and an independent inquiry into police violence.
Violent clashes erupted on Sunday as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.
In a rare intervention on Monday, China's top policy office in Hong Kong condemned the "horrendous incidents" that have caused "serious damage to the rule of law".
A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said the territory's "top priority" was to "restore social order".
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Former Wales and British & Irish Lions rugby player Gareth Williams has died aged 63 after a battle with a rare nervous system disorder. | The death of Williams, who had been suffering with multiple system atrophy since 2012, was confirmed by his former club Bridgend Ravens.
Williams won five Wales caps between 1980 and 1982 and appeared on the Lions tour to South Africa in 1980.
Bridgend Ravens paid tribute to their former captain as a "true club legend".
A back-row forward, Williams helped Bridgend win two Welsh Cups during their four successive finals appearances between 1979 and 1982.
He had been bed-bound since January 2017.
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An Indian man apparently angered at getting a BMW for his birthday - instead of a Jaguar - pushed the new vehicle into a river. | Video posted on social media shows it floating away on the river in the northern Indian state of Haryana.
It later got stuck on a bank of tall grass and the man, said to be the son of a local landlord, tried to rescue it.
Police are investigating the incident, local media report.
BMW cars cost around 3.5m rupees (£41,400; $49,000) locally, with Jaguars costing about 4-5m rupees.
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A motorcyclist aged in his 60s has died in a crash with a van. | The bike collided with a Ford Transit on the A36 near Warminster at about 10:30 GMT on Monday
The victim, from the Westbury area, was pronounced dead at the scene between the Crockerton and Heytesbury roundabouts.
Wiltshire Police, who have appealed for witnesses, said the male driver of the van was uninjured.
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Wiltshire Police
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Top US Republican Steve Scalise and four other people have been shot and wounded while Republican lawmakers were practising for a congressional baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC.
A suspect who was wounded in a shootout with police was taken into custody and President Donald Trump later said he had died. He was named by US media as James T Hodgkinson, 66, of Illinois. | What happened?
House of Representatives Majority Whip Steve Scalise and a group of Republican colleagues from both the House and the Senate were practising for Thursday's annual congressional ballgame against the Democrats.
Their practice game was being held at the YMCA baseball fields, near Alexandria's Eugene Simpson Stadium Park.
Witnesses said the players scattered from the field as 50-100 shots were fired at about 06:30 (10:30 GMT).
Rep Scalise, who was fielding at second base at the time, was shot in the hip. Colleagues tended to him, using a belt as a tourniquet to stop his bleeding.
A gunfight ensued between the gunman and Mr Scalise's police security detail.
Two police officers were also wounded, along with a congressional staffer and a lobbyist.
The attacker was said to have been armed with a rifle and a pistol, using a dugout for protection.
Democrats were practising on a different field at the time.
Latest updates
What do we know about the attacker?
US media quoting officials named the suspect as James T Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Illinois.
Mr Trump in a TV address said the "assailant has now died from his injuries".
Hodgkinson's Facebook page contained posts with anti-Republican and anti-Trump rhetoric, and also strong praise for Democratic former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
The Belleville News-Democrat newspaper also carried a 2012 photograph of him holding a placard outside a post office saying: "Tax the rich."
Mr Sanders strongly condemned the shooting, saying: "I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society."
Hodgkinson was listed as the owner of a home inspection business, according to the Washington Post, although his business licence expired last year.
Online records show he faced charges of battery and aiding damage to a motor vehicle in St Clair County, Illinois, in April 2006, but the charges were dismissed, the Post reports.
No motive has been given for the attack.
Rep Brooks said the Republican baseball team was well known in the area and their practices were "no secret". The attacker was "going after elected officials", he said.
James T Hodgkinson: What we know
Who was present, and who was shot?
Representative Scalise, 51, from the state of Louisiana, is the third-highest ranking Republican in the House, and as whip has the task of keeping order in the party and making sure representatives come to vote. He is currently in a stable condition in hospital.
Up to 25 other lawmakers were at the game with their staff, among them: former presidential hopeful Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona; Representatives Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, Mike Bishop of Michigan, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina; and Representatives Joe Barton, Kevin Brady, Mike Conaway and Roger Williams, all of Texas. None are thought to have been injured.
Rep Scalise has a security detail, members of which engaged with the attacker. Two of them were shot. Senator Flake described how one of them had returned fire despite a leg wound - and might have brought down the attacker.
Rep Williams said one of his staffers was wounded. The staffer, named as Zack Barth, later said he was in hospital but okay.
The fifth person wounded was Matthew Mika, a lobbyist and former staffer for two former Republican representatives. His employer, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, confirmed he was in hospital and said it was awaiting news of his condition.
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A man has been placed in an induced coma after being found collapsed in the street having taken the legal high 'Annihilation', police have said. | The 33-year-old was found in Drake Street, Rochdale, on Friday morning.
He was taken to hospital and is in an induced coma. His friends told officers he had been taking the legal high.
Police issued an urgent warning after a second man, aged 39, was also found collapsed in Drake Street several hours later.
The man is also believed to have taken a legal high and was treated by medics at the scene before leaving.
Det Insp Andy Butterworth, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "The use of legal highs is a worrying trend and has ended with a man in hospital in intensive care.
"I want to remind people about the potentially life-threatening consequences of legal highs - they may not be illegal but they definitely are not safe."
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The BBC has obtained exclusive footage of the aftermath of Pakistani air strikes against the Taliban in North Waziristan - but some say it's still protecting certain militants it has supported in the past. | Andrew NorthSouth Asia correspondent@NorthAndrewon Twitter
Major General Asim Bajwa painted a clear picture.
"We are going after terrorists of all hue and colour," he told journalists at a briefing on the Pakistani army's operation against militant havens in North Waziristan.
Conjuring visions of the Stalingrad "kettle" in World War Two, he said Pakistani troops now had the whole area surrounded: "They cannot escape."
But many reports, as well as footage obtained by the BBC, suggest some militants at least got away and some shades of "terrorist" may still be safe.
'Militant warehouse'
This is the operation many inside and outside Pakistan say should have begun long ago, as North Waziristan was allowed to become a veritable warehouse for all brands of Islamic militancy.
It's from there that the Pakistani Taliban have been mounting their deadly suicide offensive for the past seven years, killing thousands of people across Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban are the chief target of Operation Zarb-e-Azb - named after the sword of the Prophet Muhammad.
But also thought to be in the army's crosshairs are al-Qaeda, and Uzbek militants who claimed to have carried out last month's deadly attack on Karachi airport.
As those devastating images flashed around the world, the operation in North Waziristan finally got the go-ahead after years of stalling.
The delay has done severe damage to Pakistan "both internally and internationally", says former army spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas.
Hundreds of thousands of people have now been displaced from North Waziristan by the army offensive.
But there are also widespread reports many militants escaped, or were alerted beforehand - including members of the Haqqani network, blamed for a string of high-profile attacks in Afghanistan.
Rare access
It's almost impossible to find out what is happening inside the tribal area now.
Difficult for outsiders to enter at any time, the army has barred all access.
But the BBC has obtained footage from a professional cameraman who got into North Waziristan with help from the Taliban, as the campaign began.
He spent a week travelling there, filming the aftermath of several Pakistani strikes - although he admits he was not allowed to record everything he saw.
We can't identify him for his own security.
At one point, he met a local Taliban commander who was escaping across the border to Afghanistan in his pick-up, just a short drive down the road.
But underlining fears of a potential backlash, the commander vowed to take revenge on Pakistan "until doomsday".
Militants were killed in some strikes, people in the border village of Gorbaz told the cameraman, but claimed civilians had perished too.
Uzbek militants had reportedly been using the same border area as a base.
Staying loyal
The Pakistani army says it is only targeting "terrorist sanctuaries" and in his briefing Maj-Gen Bajwa said they had killed 376 "terrorists" so far.
He also released pictures of suspected bomb-making factories found by ground troops - which were churning out explosive devices for suicide attacks.
But pressed on the identities of those killed, he was less forthcoming. And what about "the Haqqanis", journalists asked. Were they classified as "terrorists" too?
Many say the carnage of the past few years is the inevitable consequence of Pakistan co-opting militant groups to pursue its strategic goals.
It's the military's powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, who have overseen this policy - and the Haqqani network based in North Waziristan is widely seen as one of their best clients.
But unlike many other groups, it has stayed loyal.
Haqqani fighters are thought to be behind a string of high-profile attacks in Afghanistan on US and Indian targets - allegedly carried out with Pakistani backing.
And it was clear none of the officials at the briefing wanted to disavow them. But "we don't want any terrorist, Haqqani or not Haqqani, on Pakistani soil", said Abdul Qadir Baloch, the minister responsible for the tribal areas.
So the message from North Waziristan seems to be that the hand that has been bitten is now biting back.
But not all militants will feel the same pain.
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Two home-made bombs have been made safe by the Irish army at a housing estate in Drogheda, County Louth.
| The bomb disposal team was called to the Moneymore estate at about 22:30 local time.
Component parts for a third device were also found.
The devices were made safe at the scene and taken away for further examination to a military facility. The scene was declared safe at about 23:40.
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Two people re-arrested on suspicion of murdering a Huntingdon man have been charged with his murder. | Sam Mechelewski, 20, was found dead with a stab wound in the town's Hinchingbrooke Park on 1 February.
Jordan Shepherd, 23, from Chatteris, and Ashley White, 20, from Brampton, will appear at Peterborough Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.
A man in his late teens, arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, has been released on bail until 10 July.
White has also been charged with possession of cannabis.
Related Internet Links
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
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City of Glasgow College, Riverside Campus is one of six UK buildings up for the 2016 Riba Stirling Prize for architecture. A select line-up of judges will decide the winner, but the BBC, in partnership with Riba, is inviting you to vote for your favourite. Find out about the other buildings here . |
If you are viewing this page on the BBC News app, tap here to vote.
What is it and where?
A campus on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow for more than 3,000 maritime and engineering students. Designed by Michael Laird Architects and Reiach & Hall Architects and completed in August 2015, the facility has specialised study areas including 360-degree shipping simulation facilities and a working ship's engine room, as well as 198 beds of student accommodation.
How much did it cost?
£66m.
What was the vision?
The architects say the campus acts as a "gatekeeper" at Albert Bridge, a major crossing-point over the Clyde. The buildings themselves are organised around two civic spaces - a cloistered garden and a grand hall - which give onto the teaching areas. The intention is to avoid "silos" and ensure that students and staff from different disciplines come into frequent contact with each other.
What have people said about it?
"It's one of the few recent projects in the city that actually acknowledges the river, using the buildings to frame two handsome new civic spaces." Oliver Wainwright, Guardian, July 2016
"A sober, rather puritan affair, a nod to the classic, minimal, commercial architecture of mid-century Chicago and New York." Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times, July 2016
"A tough building... that trains young people to be naval engineers. It's real. Gritty. Like Taggart." Rory Olcayto, Archinect, July 2016
Explore the other buildings on the shortlist
BBC Riba Stirling home page
Find out more about the BBC Riba Stirling Prize partnership
Credits: Video by Richard Kenny and Dave O'Neill. Stills image by Ham II / Wikimedia
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
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Take That and JLS are on course to dominate this weekend's singles and album charts, holding off a download surge expected from The Beatles. | This week the fab four's entire catalogue was made available to download for the first time.
Take That's new album The Promise has already sold more than 300,000 copies and is on course to be one of the biggest first week sales totals ever.
It's the biggest first day sales in 13 years, since Oasis's Be Here Now.
In the Official Singles Chart JLS are well ahead with this year's Children In Need single, Love You More.
However the Official Charts Company is expecting several of the Beatles singles and albums to appear in the charts by Sunday.
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A record 27,500 runners have taken on the third biggest running event in the UK. | For the first time in the event's 17 year-history, more women than men lined up at the start line of the Cardiff Half Marathon.
Leonard Langat won the Cardiff Half men's race in a course record of 59:29, and Lucy Cheruiyot won the women's race in 01:08:19.
Female runners made up 51% of the total entry this year.
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Towns and cities around England had planned parades and street parties to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day but with events cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, how are people getting ready to mark the day? | Victory in Europe (VE) Day on 8 May 1945 saw Britain and its Allies formally accept Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender after almost six years of war.
With the day falling on a Friday this year, the early May bank holiday was moved so that people could celebrate with many towns planning public events to mark the occasion.
Due to lockdown these events have been cancelled but councils, neighbours and families have found different ways to celebrate.
Take a look at some of the preparations people have been making around England.
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For gamers around the country, lockdown might appear to be an ideal opportunity to hone your skills in pretty much every waking moment. But how much should we be playing online? And could it offer some benefits at a time of social isolation? | According to Dr Dayna Galloway, who heads of the division of games and arts at Abertay University, the main message - as in all things - is not to overdo it.
"Screentime guidance varies for age groups - but the key is to ensure a healthy balance across activities," he said.
"It's important for individuals to ensure a mix of physical activity, sedentary behaviour such as reading and screen time, and, of course, a good night's sleep.
"Isolation and lockdown in different circumstances will of course skew this, but it's important for people to try to maintain as much balance as possible."
Happy chapping?
There are a range of activities aimed at trying to persuade young people in particular to take a screen break.
In Dumfries and Galloway, the council's youth work team has sent out isolation packs which include old-school games like dominoes and playing cards.
The Wigtown Book Festival recently launched a writing competition for children from eight to 18.
The Scottish Book Trust is also encouraging us to get our pens out and contribute stories to a publication planned on the theme of "future".
In addition, fitness classes have gone online and are proving particularly successful.
No man is an island
A recent festival in Dumfries highlighted the positive aspects of gaming and these could be particularly relevant while confined to your home for large parts of the day.
Dr Galloway said online gameplay allowed for "communication and collaboration" to achieve goals or compete with others.
"It easily replaces some of the activities that are no longer feasible due to social distancing and isolation," he said.
"It's very important for mental well-being to maintain relationships and contact with friends and family, and online games are an excellent method for facilitating this.
"The games themselves also create emergent outcomes and scenarios that create positive shared experiences, and memories for those engaged with them."
He said that meant they could have more impact than a video call and were "a good replacement in the current circumstances" for other forms of social interaction.
"Entertainment such as games and streaming services also help us pass the time and, more importantly, stay indoors - so this aspect is particularly helpful in the situation we are in," he added.
Be board
There are different potential benefits attached, according to the type of game being played.
Minecraft, Sea of Thieves or Fortnite can help maintain social activity and encourage contact with your peer-group.
Dr Galloway said they boosted "communication, creativity and collaboration".
Other games encourage physical activity, which is something we are being encouraged to maintain.
"It may be a good opportunity to dust off the Nintendo Wii for some Wii Sports," suggested Dr Galloway.
Pokemon Go, with social distancing, could be used on a daily exercise walk.
But it might also be time to go retro - but using technology to give it a twist.
"Raid the cupboard or pick up some traditional board games to have some fun with whoever you are under lockdown with," suggested Dr Galloway.
"Some games can also be played over video chats - if you are creative and promise not to cheat."
But above all, the recommendation is moderation for however long lockdown may continue.
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A trial begins on Wednesday 6 June in the southern French city of Toulouse involving a bank heist, the punk music movement that swept Europe in the early 1980s and a man who came back from the dead. Chris Bockman reports on an unlikely comeback. | One of France's most well-known criminal lawyers, Christian Etelin, was sitting at his desk late at night last November contemplating retirement, when he received a phone call that stunned him. First of all, because the caller had been declared dead years ago - and secondly, because it involved a brash armed robbery that occurred nearly 30 years ago.
The voice on the other end of the phone was that of Gilles Bertin - a one-time nihilist punk singer with a Bordeaux Group called Camera Silens with a heavy following amongst anarchists and extreme left-wing youths who thought there was no future, for them at least. Britain had Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols - Gilles Bertin was France's equivalent.
In the late 1980s the group and their hangers-on were destitute, despite their success, and addicted to drugs. Several had been infected with the HIV virus after sharing contaminated heroin syringes.
They figured they didn't have long to live, so they decided to go out with a bang, mount a massive armed robbery and then blow it all before they died.
And that's exactly what some of the band members did - they stole 12 million francs (nearly 2 million euros) from a Brinks deposit in Toulouse - a small fortune at the time. They even - apparently - called the local newspaper afterwards boasting of their feat. No-one was injured in the robbery and the police quickly realised they were dealing with amateurs. All were caught within a year except one suspect, Gilles Bertin.
Hardly any of the money was retrieved and some of the anarchist robbers, already very sick, died from AIDS-related symptoms.
The others, after spending a brief time in jail, returned to obscurity and nine-to-five jobs.
Gilles Bertin received a 10-year sentence in his absence and as the years passed, the robbery and punk movement faded from view. The singer/convicted armed robber was declared dead. His family - including his son born during those wild years in Bordeaux - had never heard from him again.
And yet he is very much alive when I meet him at a crowded ancient brasserie called the Cafe de la Concorde for lunch in the heart of Toulouse. Tall with shaggy hair and blind in one eye - a consequence of hepatitis caused by drug use - he is incredibly polite and shy. He tells me a little about those 28 years on the run and why he has returned.
After the robbery, he was literally carrying bags of banknotes and he headed to Portugal, where he opened a record store - all paid for in cash, of course. Occasionally a travelling French music fan would recognise him but he would deny it was him. Every time he saw a car with French number plates outside the store he was convinced he was being monitored or followed.
After 10 years of running the shop he thought the French police were really on his tracks this time and he headed to Barcelona with his Spanish girlfriend. Her family ran a bar and he became the barman. They had a child. Only his girlfriend knew about his background - to everyone else he was a man with no past.
Find out more
But he told me that when he was close to death with hepatitis and was saved by hospital staff in Barcelona free of charge, no questions asked, because he had no documents, it was the turning point - time to confront his past and be honest with his son. His life had been saved, while he had provided nothing for society.
"I realised I had to tell the truth and come clean about my past," he says.
Hence that phone call to the lawyer. He crossed the border by train to Toulouse and, with his lawyer, turned himself in at police headquarters.
While he admits he is nervous with the court date looming, he nevertheless feels a burden has been lifted.
"This is the final stage of a long ordeal that I have to go through," he says. "However, I am anxious, it gives me vertigo thinking about it especially as I know I risk a 20-year prison sentence.
"But I am really doing this for my seven-year-old son. He still doesn't really understand what I did during my nearly 30 years on the run - but he needs to know."
Expecting to be jailed immediately, to his complete surprise he found he could remain free until his trial - where he will plead guilty. He says the decision not to imprison him has made him even more angry with himself for what he did.
But if some people think his past is romantic he wants to make it clear he would never want to have the life he had again.
"There was nothing romantic about what I did," he says. "In hiding, unable to talk about yourself or to people from your past, including my son, constantly on the look-out in case the authorities find you - and on top of that I was seriously ill."
For three decades, he says, he lived a lie, with shame. He constantly felt like a hunted animal, living in permanent paranoia. As he awaits trial he's writing about his experience on the run and has even reunited with his other son, now 30 years old.
He hopes he can convince the judge that he has changed.
"Back in the late 70s and early 80s I was an angry young man, a nihilist, an anarchist on a destructive path and in revolt against society. You have to understand the context back then," he says.
"I made mistakes but I am not that same person now - at 57 I am more mature and have nothing to do with that period in my life."
Since his return from the dead, Bertin has re-established contact with some of the ex-band members (and Brinks robbery associates) who are still alive - many aren't. One now drives a bus, another is an orderly on a hospital ward. Does he still listen to his old music?
He winces and says his music back then was appalling - these days he listens to soul. If he avoids a jail sentence he will return to Barcelona, but no longer live undercover.
"Hopefully I will be able to explain to my son the choices that I made back then."
He admits he finds the media interest in his life "a little overwhelming".
When it comes to the Brinks money, he insists he spent it all a very long time ago.
As for his 74-year-old lawyer Christian Etelin, who has defended convicted far-left terrorists, Islamic fanatics and gangsters all his life - he decided to put off retirement. This was a case he just couldn't let go.
More from the BBC
He was a skinhead and the poster boy for one of the 1980s' most notorious far-right movements. But Nicky Crane was secretly gay. Then his precarious dual existence fell dramatically apart.
The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi (December 2013)
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
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The Isle of Man government is to consider proposals to increase the minimum wage from October.
| The move, which would see the amount increased from £6.20 to £6.40 an hour, has been put forward after a review by the department of economic development.
The changes would apply to Isle of Man workers over the age of 18.
Economic development minister, John Shimmin said he hopes the changes "will providing an incentive to those who are able to work to seek employment".
Related Internet Links
Economic Development
Tynwald
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As the UK adjusts to life under coronavirus lockdown, those who have recently lost a loved one can find being stuck at home, unable to get out and reach friends and family, extremely difficult. So how are they coping behind closed doors? | By Phil Shepka and Rob EnglandBBC News
"Fifty-eight, widowed, lonely, locked-down, straitened, and fat - but NO ONE can take my kippers."
That was the message from broadcaster and former pop star Rev Richard Coles as he marked his birthday with a picture of his breakfast on Twitter.
Messages of support have been pouring in for the Reverend, who lost his partner, David, in December.
Coles was the keyboard player in the 80s band The Communards and is now vicar of Finedon, Northamptonshire.
Charities say bereavement is often an "extremely lonely and isolating time", but Linda Magistris, from The Good Grief Trust, said the grief of those who are self-isolating may be made worse because of the stress and anxiety brought on by the pandemic.
Several people who lost loved ones spoke to the BBC about their own coping mechanisms.
'Trying to occupy my mind'
Shelly Daniels recently moved to Weymouth, Dorset, from Brighton to be closer to her family after her 28-year-old son James died "suddenly and unexpectedly" in November.
Ms Daniels, 54, said the lockdown meant she found herself alone after being separated geographically from her partner, who still lives in Brighton, and her daughter, who is self-isolating because of a serious health condition.
"It's changed my whole normal routine of what I've been doing," she said.
"[I'm] trying to do something each minute of the day to keep occupied and keep [my] mind focused, and although it's difficult I try not to dwell on what's happened and happening."
Ms Daniels said video calls with her partner several times a day had helped.
"Thank heavens for technology," she said.
"We've got all sorts of things we wouldn't have had if this had been 10 or 20 years ago."
Technology is not only helping to maintain connections with loved ones, but also linking people with support networks for bereaved people.
Through the hospice that helped her husband Darren until his death in July, Natasha Cable has become part of a WhatsApp group made up of 25 widowed people.
Mrs Cable, 45, from Ashtead, Surrey, said the group had become a lifeline for her.
She said members exchanged messages "throughout the day, just checking in on each other, any advice, some jokes to break the day up with a little bit of humour".
She said there was "no pussyfooting around", giving people freedom to speak openly, and she urged others in a similar position to find similar groups.
Mrs Cable is now self-isolating alongside their 13-year-old daughter Annalise following the government's advice to remain at home.
She added: "People are moaning about their husbands at home driving them mad and this and that - but for me I would do anything to have Darren here driving me mad."
A spokesman for charity Widowed and Young (WAY), said many of the recently bereaved people in its community network had turned to video call meet-ups for support.
"Some of our members have set up a virtual pub, the Widows' Arms, and they are holding a pub quiz tomorrow night," a spokeswoman said.
"Our members are telling us: we've got through worse than this and we are still standing.
"We will get through this too, with each other's help."
'Time to concentrate'
Jannine Silver, from Midgham in Berkshire, said she had "already faced the worst time" of her life after losing her husband, Howie, 57.
"I'm using this downtime to concentrate on clearing and cleaning my house, changing things around, basically doing what I've put off for 13 months," the 47-year-old said.
After her husband's death, Mrs Silver said she isolated herself from normal life even before the lockdown, but the online groups she had found through the charity had offered her "constant support".
Suzanne Elvidge, from Tideswell in the Peak District, said being widowed and having no children meant the lockdown showed her "the true meaning of being completely alone".
The 52-year-old's husband, Tim, died in 2018 from heart complications caused by type 2 diabetes.
However, she said she had found many "coping strategies" to fall back on during the lockdown.
"Writing, Netflix, knitting, reading, running errands for a friend in total isolation, and talking to my neighbours over the wall," she said.
She said she'd also turned her hand to baking, and "lowered home-baked chocolate cake over the wall on string" to hungry neighbours.
"Be kind to yourself, accept that you will get overwhelmed because you're dealing with both grief and an unprecedented situation."
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story you can contact the BBC Action Line.
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A 30-year-old woman has been arrested in Sweden as part of a investigation into prostitution and human trafficking in Northern Ireland.
| Detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) have travelled to Sweden to extradite her.
The woman, a Romanian, was detained under a European arrest warrant.
Det Insp Mark Bell said she is due in court in Belfast on Thursday to face charges including human trafficking and controlling prostitution.
The alleged offences date back three years and the investigation is being carried out by the PSNI's human trafficking unit.
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On 6 February, Abdul Waheed Majeed, from Crawley in West Sussex, drove a truck bomb into the gates of a prison in Syria. Does his death represent everything that the government fears about radicalisation on a foreign battlefield? | Dominic CascianiHome affairs correspondent@BBCDomCon Twitter
A little boy is standing on the sun-bleached pier at Brighton beach, next to his brother.
Complete with washed-out colours, it's no different to millions of other happy family snaps from the 1970s.
Fast forward four decades and the final images in the life of Abdul Waheed Majeed are quite different.
He is now standing in a sun-bleached road amid rubble and chaos. He's wearing a black bandana and a simple white gown. The man holding the camera appears to asked Majeed to say something. He appears reluctant, declaring that he is tongue-tied.
Chechen militiamen, apparently part of the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front, pose as the British man raises a finger skywards. It is the classic pose of a would-be mujahideen "martyr".
Some time later, the road engineer who lived in Martyrs Avenue, Langley Green, West Sussex, is presumed dead. He has driven a massive truck-bomb into the gates of Aleppo prison in Syria. Fighters who filmed the attack shouted the customary cry "God is Great". The blast wave from the explosion has so much force it shakes the camera.
"Abu Suleiman al-Britani" was the 10th British man to die on a Syrian battlefield - and the first to die in a vehicle-borne suicide bomb attack.
Inside Britain's security agencies, Majeed's death only added to a sense of growing crisis. Why did a 41-year-old father of three from a quiet town in West Sussex give up his life in a foreign war - and what does he represent?
Abdul Waheed Majeed was brought up in Crawley to Pakistani-born parents. His older brother, Hafeez, speaking on behalf of all the family, says that their life was no different to those of any other children in the area.
"We would go on our push-bikes together when we were young, we would go to the local park, feed the ducks, go to town, have a bite to eat at the fish-and-chip shop. Anything that a normal brother would like to do. As a family, we enjoyed doing things as one unit. We used to go to the Isle of Wight and have a great time."
Majeed eventually married and became a father-of-three. He got a steady and stable job as a highways engineer, often working in emergency crews repairing carriageways after motorway accidents.
But in July last year, he made a decision to do something big. The Syrian conflict was dominating the news. Muslim communities had been running massive fund-raising drives to send convoys to refugee camps on the border with Turkey. A Birmingham charity was co-ordinating a nationwide convoy and it needed drivers. Majeed told his family he wanted to volunteer.
"Waheed saw that there were people being oppressed, people with no food, people being torn apart from their families, people being put in prison," says Hafeez Majeed.
"He just thought that this was a great injustice. My brother wasn't the kind of person to send money in an envelope. He had to play his part and help."
Majeed persuaded one of his closest childhood friends, Raheed Mahmood, to join him on this journey. Mahmood has spoken for the first time about their time in Syria. "I had to ask myself what was keeping me from going," he says.
"I didn't want to go through my life continuously working, earning money, spending, eating, sleeping. Our faith calls for this kind of work - he knew me as a friend and could gauge my response."
The men left on the convoy and began sending regular messages and pictures home - some happy, some sad - many detailing the difficult conditions that the Syrian people were facing.
Over the months to come, Majeed's family say he sent reports showing how he was working on camp construction, improving the lay-out and sanitation of the tent cities. As the months wore on, the war took its emotional toll. Mahmood says he and Majeed would often listen to ordinary families tell of how their lives had been destroyed.
"You could not help but see the glaze in his eye, you can see almost a tear because some of these stories are shocking. Whether he acknowledged it or not, I could see the emotions running high."
And by the end of the year, the families were urging the men to return.
Hafeez Majeed says: "There was that point when my parents did say, 'We feel you have done your part in Syria.' His [Majeed's] response was always that there was so much more that he could offer these people... 'my journey has not finished yet'."
"Eventually it has its toll on you," says Mahmood. "You miss your wife and your children, the comforts of that life. A man can only bear so much. You could see that I was ready to go and I could see that he wanted to continue. I found it very emotional."
Mahmood came back to the UK in January on board a returning British convoy. He remained in contact with Majeed via the internet until he received a final and, with hindsight, odd message.
"He told me that he would be out of contact for a while, which was not unusual, but he did tell me to forgive him for any errors and to ask the other brothers to think good of him. I felt that he was quite emotional. I was a bit unsure. It was from the heart. [I thought] maybe he was coming back soon."
But he didn't come back.
About a week had passed with no contact from Majeed. Neither friends nor family had heard from him.
On Thursday 6 February Majeed apparently got into the cab of an armoured truck, filled with explosives. There were tiny slots in the armour allowing him to see the road ahead and to the side. Amid heavy gunfire, he drove straight at the prison gates.
The local fighters he had joined believe that the explosion allowed hundreds of prisoners to escape - although there is no independent way of verifying that report.
It was days before Majeed's family and friends realised that he had been involved. Mahmood was the first to make the link after he was able to contact aid workers in Majeed's camp who confirmed that he had apparently disappeared to join a militia.
"One side of me said that this must be verified," says Mahmood. "And then you come to realisation that this has definitely taken place... How do you respond?
"I wasn't really able to contain my emotions, I was quite tearful. I don't think anyone could be prepared to handle that kind of information. I started to think, how do I relay this to my family? What do I say, how do I get these words out? How do I tell his children?"
And then the video emerged - making words unnecessary.
"When I saw that video, I did not recognise my brother," says Hafeez Majeed. "He was around people that he seemed to hardly know. He looked totally different, as if he should not have been there.
"My heart sank, my mum and dad's hearts sank, we were extremely grief-stricken when we saw that moment, extremely shocked, deeply, deeply worried. You just don't know what to think when the last contact you had with him, everything seemed normal.
"For things to jump in the course of a week to him standing by a truck and that truck being driven into a military prison compound, it was extremely difficult for us, emotionally, as a family to comprehend."
The family contacted the police and government for help. Officials took DNA samples and dental records. Police also used counter-terrorism powers to seize computers and phones to look into Majeed's past and the communications he had sent home.
The police still have those computers - but the mood among security chiefs appears to be that his death could not have been predicted.
But given this is a foreign war, why should British security chiefs be so concerned?
Crawley is no stranger to tales of global jihad because some men from the town have been part of the broad network of radical Islamist thinking that advocates the belief that Muslims in the West have a duty to fight for Islamic causes abroad.
Back in 2001, a local man died as the Americans bombed Taliban and al-Qaeda positions in Afghanistan.
The banned group al-Muhajiroun operated a prayer circle in the town until around 2004. One of the group's Crawley followers went further and received bomb-making training from al-Qaeda associates in Pakistan. He and two others from the town were convicted and jailed for life for leading a major bomb conspiracy, known as Operation Crevice. Majeed knew some of these men because he grew up alongside them and, for a time, attended the same al-Muhajiroun circles.
During the Crevice investigation, an al-Qaeda supergrass described Majeed as an associate of the British men he knew in the UK and, briefly, in Pakistan.
Those claims have not been tested in court because Majeed was never arrested or charged in relation to Crevice or any other British terrorism investigation.
"My brother was not fully involved with Al-Muhajiroun," says Hafeez Majeed. "At that early stage of his life he was dipping his toes into different types of groups. The views that they espoused did not marry with what his beliefs were."
Mahmood's brother was among the three Crawley men jailed for life in Operation Crevice. But Mahmood says that neither he nor Majeed harboured jihadist views that were eventually played out in Syria. He insists that they rejected that thinking long ago.
"There was a period during the early development [of our faith] when we did want to understand the various perspectives, the various views that people had formed," he says.
"We disagreed with al-Muhajiroun - the message and the styles and the means of how they put that out. So, just respectfully, as we did with many other movements, we moved on."
Social media sites including Twitter and YouTube are awash with reports from the jihadist frontlines in Syria.
Security chiefs in Whitehall believe that the number of men from Britain thought to have fought in the country has now reached the upper end of the low hundreds. Half of these men may now be back in the country - and MI5 fears "blowback".
It worries that history may be about to repeat itself - men could be returning battle-hardened and radicalised and, in some cases, prepared to carry out attacks on the UK's streets in a protest against foreign policy.
Police have stepped up their own investigations and operations. So far this year, more than 30 people have been arrested.
Speaking to Newsnight, security minister James Brokenshire warns there is genuine cause for concern. "Syria has become the jihadi destination of choice," he says. "I understand the desire for people to want to help, to give that humanitarian assistance but travelling out there puts them at risk how they may be radicalised and brutalised by the experiences they see."
But the idea of a direct line - a thread linking al-Qaeda, the Syrian jihad and a threat to British national security, isn't universally accepted.
Back in Crawley, young people at the town's main mosque talk about Majeed's death. "Previously, suicide bombings have been targeting innocent civilians, like 7/7," says one prayer-goer, Zeeshan Hussain. "But as far as I'm aware, no innocents were targeted [by Majeed]. Although you could question what he was doing, I wouldn't say he was terrorising anyone. The people who say it was an act of terrorism, who are they saying he's terrorising?"
Many British Muslims share Hussain's view that Syria's jihad has blurred lines. Al-Qaeda linked groups are involved - but many people believe that the conflict is closer in character to the civil war in Bosnia. Some compare it to the Spanish Civil War in which international brigades of young men fought against General Franco.
Mohammad Huzaifa Bora, the imam at Crawley mosque, says nobody wants to break the law - and his community is abiding by advice not to organise any more convoys. But people are confused about where the British government stands. "It's very conflicting, very confusing - the message. And it came too late," he says. "All those convoys, and all those youths, they are there."
Brokenshire says the government's message is clear. "People should not travel to Syria because of the risk that it poses to them and how actually it makes matters worse. It does not assist in terms of the Syrian people who have said very clearly they don't want foreign fighters. They want humanitarian aid."
Asim Qureshi, of campaign group Cage, says there has been a failure to properly analyse why Majeed carried out his attack. He says the government must differentiate between the different armed groups in the conflict and their military intentions and methods. He says it was impossible to say for certain whether the Crawley man intended to die - so it is impossible to attach a clear motive.
"If you look at what is going on in Syria, then you will see that it falls in line with any other civil conflict anywhere in the world," says Mr Qureshi. "Some people will feel very, very strongly about fighting against injustice because they want to fight those who are being oppressed. But if British citizens were involved in war crimes, then they should be held accountable."
One of Cage's founders, Moazzam Begg has been charged with terrorism-related offences in Syria. He denies the charges.
So why did Majeed do it? Was there some kind of unbroken ideological thread from his radical past to his death in Syria? Is he a textbook study of the "conveyor belt" of extremism?
Mahmood says that he agrees that there needs to be a debate about the threat of blowback - but he says that Majeed "doesn't tick any of the boxes".
"The events of Crevice, al-Muhajiroun and Syria - there is almost a 15-year gap," he says. "The events that took place in Syria were based solely on what Waheed experienced in Syria."
The family speculate Majeed was motivated to fight by a major report in January that detailed evidence that the Assad regime was torturing, starving and executing prisoners. They now believe he gave his life trying to free some of those detainees.
But was he a violent jihadist, just waiting for his chance - either at home or abroad?
"My brother was not a terrorist. My brother was a hero," says Hafeez Majeed.
"If I could put it like this: if my brother had been a British soldier and there were British people in that prison, I know he would have been awarded the posthumous Victoria Cross.
"My brother paid the full price with his life for what he did. He was not a threat to the British public and never has been a threat to the British public."
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Staff working for Northern Ireland's Agriculture Department (Daera) at border posts at Larne and Belfast ports are returning to work on Wednesday, more than a week after the department temporarily suspended physical checks at the ports. | By Luke SprouleBBC News NI
BBC News NI examines the events leading up to checks first being suspended and what has happened since.
1 January: The Irish Sea border comes into effect
The end of the Brexit transition period sees the Irish Sea border come into effect.
It's a result of the Northern Ireland Protocol - the part of the Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods.
This avoids the need for checks on the Irish border. Instead EU customs rules are enforced at Northern Ireland's ports.
Mid-January: Anti-protocol graffiti begins to appear
Many unionists and loyalists are strongly opposed to the protocol.
Graffiti opposing the Irish Sea border begins to appear in some loyalist areas of Northern Ireland including parts of Bangor, Belfast, Glengormley and Larne - which is home to one of NI's main ports.
On 27 January Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan tells MPs there are also signs of discontent on social media platforms.
In February two men will be charged with painting graffiti in Larne.
28 January: Concerns raised about potential threat
NI's Chief Vet Robert Huey represents Daera at a routine meeting of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (Solace).
Recalling the discussion at a meeting of Stormont's Agriculture Committee on 4 February, Mr Huey recounts that the topic of the graffiti was raised and he informed the meeting that police had "been reassuring that it was not a serious threat".
He says he was then told by "the representative there for Mid and East Antrim [council]" that this "was not the case, that the threat was serious and that I should be taking it seriously".
Mr Huey says that the next day - 29 January - he reported this to the daily "gold command" meeting which was attended by representatives from local authorities across Northern Ireland.
Mid and East Antrim Council has not responded to BBC queries about whether its chief executive Anne Donaghy attended the Solace meeting.
"Council has a very low threshold concerning threats and the safety of its staff, and will always take decisive action to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of employees," said a council spokesperson.
31 January: Minister raises safety concerns
Daera Permanent Secretary Denis McMahon says he received a call on 31 January from the then-minister in the department, Edwin Poots, to "express his concern about the safety of staff at the ports of entry".
Mr Poots said a "local government officer" had contacted him to "alert him to potential health and safety risks as a result of threats to staff" at Larne Port, Mr McMahon told the agriculture committee on 4 February.
BBC News NI has asked Mid and East Antrim Council if it was Ms Donaghy who contacted Mr Poots, but the council has neither confirmed nor denied.
Mr Poots added that he had had conversations with political colleagues across Northern Ireland as well as other stakeholders who were reporting the same, added Mr McMahon. Mr Poots had subsequently contacted police to provide more details, he added.
1 February: Checks are suspended
Mr McMahon says he receives a call from Mr Poots at midday on 1 February.
He says the minister formally registers his concern about the health and safety of Daera staff working at the point of entry/border control post.
Mr McMahon speaks to a senior police officer, who says officers are gathering additional intelligence and arranging a meeting with stakeholders, including Mr McMahon, the following day.
The permanent secretary says the officer tells him he will share a threat assessment after that meeting, but at that stage it has not changed from the previous week.
Later that day, at the request of Solace, Mr Poots meets the chief executives of Mid and East Antrim Council and Belfast City Council.
At that meeting, concerns are highlighted about threatening graffiti and reports that the vehicle registrations of staff had been recorded, and that they feel threatened.
Mr McMahon says the issues are primarily raised around Larne.
An email, seen by BBC News NI, is sent from an officer in trade union Unite to the head of HR at Mid and East Antrim council, at 13:45 GMT.
In it, the union says staff appear to have been threatened by graffiti "and potentially other methods", and asks for assurances that the council is risk-assessing the issue.
Unions later say they understand that following receipt of that email the council contacted police at about 15:00 and asked them if there were issues around threats to staff before subsequently being told by the PSNI that there were not.
That evening, Mr Poots phones Mr McMahon again and tells him he wants Daera staff stood down at Larne and Belfast, given the risks identified.
Mr Poots adds he is "not convinced police had a full understanding of the risk" and that Mid and East Antrim Council has already taken action.
Mr McMahon speaks to the chief vet and they decide that despite the lack of a formal police risk assessment, temporarily suspending physical checks on food and other animal products would be a "measured proportionate approach".
At about 19:00 Mid and East Antrim Council makes a decision to immediately withdraw all its staff from inspection duties at Larne Port.
At 21:50 Daera says it is temporarily suspending physical inspections of products of animal origin at Larne and Belfast.
Belfast City Council staff remain at work and Daera checks on live animals at Larne continue.
Documentary and seal checks - the other two-thirds of the Irish Sea border process - continue. Documentary checks are online while seal checks are completed at British ports.
Meanwhile, at a Mid and East Antrim Council meeting, Mayor Peter Johnston tells councillors: "Trade unions - on behalf of council members of staff assisting with the checks at the port - have raised serious concerns around suspicious activity such as apparent information gathering, including the taking of personal registration plates from their vehicles".
That night Mr Poots announces he will stand down as Daera minister to undergo surgery for a cancerous growth on his kidney.
He is replaced by fellow DUP assembly member Gordon Lyons.
2 February: EU staff withdrawn
The EU condemns threats against staff and tells EU officials working in Northern Ireland not to attend their duties.
ACC McEwan tells BBC News NI there is no evidence to corroborate an anonymous claim that any of the main loyalist paramilitary groups were behind the threats.
He adds there is no evidence that car registrations of staff were being gathered, adding that there was nothing to suggest an attack on anyone was imminent.
5 February: Council staff resume inspections
Mid and East Antrim Council says its 12 environmental health officers are returning to work after it received a threat assessment from police.
It adds it has carried out its own risk assessment and staff safety is its priority.
6 February: Trade unions dispute threat claims
Trade unions Nipsa, Unite and GMB distance themselves from Mid and East Antrim Council's account of alleged threats to workers around "increasing suspicious activity such as apparent information gathering, including the taking of personal registration plates from their vehicles".
The trade unions write to Mayor Peter Johnston asking him to withdraw the remarks he made at the 1 February council meeting.
In a letter written written on behalf of the unions by TUS secretary Alan Law, they say: "As this was an official statement issued on behalf of council at the monthly meeting please would you clarify which trade union made this claim as neither Nipsa, GMB nor Unite did, and we absolutely distance ourselves from these remarks."
7 February: 'No credible threats'
Chief Constable Simon Byrne says police have no evidence of "credible threats" against port workers in Larne or Belfast.
He says Mid and East Antrim Council's decision to withdraw staff was taken by "people outside of the purview of policing".
He says police worked with the council to reassure them there was no credible threat, ahead of workers returning on Friday.
Meanwhile a Daera spokesman says resumption of full checks will by informed by a formal threat assessment from police, which it has received, alongside its own internal risk assessment.
9 February: Council statement 'untruthful'
Alan Law says the trade unions are particularly concerned about Mr Johnston's remarks which said unions had raised concerns over staff number plates being gathered.
He says that while Unite had contacted Mid and East Antrim Council on 1 February over concerns about graffiti and "potentially other methods" no union had raised the issue of number plates.
"The mayor [Peter Johnston] references the trade unions, he says the trade unions advised the council that number plates were being recorded," Mr Law says.
"Now that simply didn't happen and that's the main issue we have with the council's statement.
"These are very serious situations and we would expect an employer like the council to take the matter extremely seriously and ensure any statement they would put out would be accurate and would not attribute untruthful remarks to the trade unions."
In response, Mr Johnston tells BBC News NI the council acted on "lots of information from different stakeholders".
He says the email from Unite was "certainly one of the pieces of information which was brought to the table".
"We had information elsewhere and that all formed part of the decision. Not only did we have the letter from the union..but we had information from many other stakeholders," he adds.
"When we presented the information we had we received cross-party support and unanimous support to withdraw the staff.
"Throughout all of this our priority and our duty of care ultimately is with our staff."
Meanwhile Daera confirms staff will return to work from Wednesday 10 February, meaning physical checks on products of animal origin can recommence.
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For anyone under the illusion that the early impact of French air strikes presages a rapid defeat for jihadist fighters in northern Mali, the latest news is a reminder of awkward realities. | By Paul MellyWest Africa analyst
The militant Islamists have seized control of the western town of Diabaly, just 150km (about 90 miles) from Segou and the country's economic heartland.
Officials in Paris were clearly not exaggerating when they said that without their intervention, the jihadist forces could have been in the capital, Bamako, within days.
And that would have been a strategic disaster for Mali above all, but also for West Africa as a whole, threatening the stability and democratic structures of the entire region.
It is understandable that in making the case for intervention to his domestic audience, President Francois Hollande has stressed the threat that would have been posed to Europe's security if Mali had been transformed into a new safe haven for radical Islamist groups.
But arguably the most worrying message - for Africa and the wider international community - would have flowed from allowing a once stable West African state to collapse entirely in the face of an assault by armed groups with an agenda of exporting revolutionary jihad.
That would have imperilled the long-term development and political security of countries from Senegal to Nigeria.
Even now, after the initial French and Malian success in halting the militant advance, many of the tough questions remain unanswered.
How will the unity and authority of the Malian state be restored? Are there underlying local grievances that need to be tackled? How will foreign troops or the Malian army cope if they have to take on the militants in desert combat during the hottest months of the year?
Peaceful handover
But these questions already faced the Malian government, France and the troop-contributing countries of West Africa, as they were developing plans for a more gradualist intervention later this year - September had been the target date for launching offensive action to retake control of the north.
Restoring Mali's unity and stability was always going to be a complex, slow and costly process, beset with both political and military complications.
But now the plans that were being so carefully worked out, and endorsed by the UN in late December, will have to be re-phased at the very least.
The original plan had been for European Union (EU) experts to retrain the Malian army first and deploy West African allied troops gradually, while elections were held to re-establish a government with a democratic mandate to replace the current transitional regime established in the wake of the March 2012 coup.
Only after all this was a serious military offensive envisaged - and then only if the jihadist groups had failed to negotiate a peaceful handover back to government rule.
France expected to lead the EU training mission - and was briefing to that effect only last week. But it did not expect to lead front-line combat.
But debate over the fine details of the intervention plan was then dramatically overtaken by the decision of the jihadist groups occupying northern Mali to launch a major new offensive.
In March and April they had seized the key towns in Mali's north - Kidal, Timbuktu, Gao and Niafounke.
A few months later they occupied Douentza, in the absence of Malian army resistance.
But after that the military situation subsided into stalemate, with neither side showing aggressive intent.
Late last year Ansar Dine, a jihadist group constituted largely of local Tuareg, even joined the peace talks that the government had already started with the secular Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).
Ansar Dine later announced its withdrawal from talks, but this appeared to be no more than a negotiating tactic.
And when the militants last week advanced towards Konna, the northernmost outpost of government control, it seemed reasonable to speculate that the group's wily leader Iyad Ag Ghaly was merely stepping up the pressure in hope of securing extra concessions.
Rear bases
But the jihadists pressed forward, seizing Konna. It became clear that Ansar Dine forces were partnered by katibas (fighting units) from the other militant factions, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim) and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao).
French intelligence identified about 200 vehicles and thousands of men, mounting a two-pronged offensive - from Douentza in the east and from Lere in the west, near Mauritania - aimed at seizing the strategic city of Mopti, gateway to the Malian south.
This was clearly a lot more than a negotiating tactic. There was a danger that the militants would have seized control of Bamako and the southern Malian heartland before any of the European military trainers or the West African intervention forces had arrived.
The air strikes and troop deployments of the past few days have brought a halt, and enabled France to hit the militant groups' rear bases in Gao and Timbuktu.
Some local people report that most of the radical fighters have abandoned these towns.
But although dramatic recent events have forced a re-phasing of the intervention strategy developed over recent months, many of the key ingredients will still be required: West African troops, the retraining of the Malian army, a credible political and development strategy for the north.
The West African forces are already arriving or about do to so, as governments in the region respond to the current emergency: Senegal, Niger, Burkina and Togo are all despatching troops. Nigeria is providing the command.
And after previous regional or UN operations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, these armies have had experience working together.
Many have also been involved in training exercises with the French and the Americans.
Meanwhile, the MNLA - the secular Malian Tuareg movement - has offered to join the offensive against the jihadists.
They will be able to contribute valuable familiarity with operations in the Sahara, their home environment.
But local Tuareg political, social and clan structures are complex. In the past, Malian governments have attempted to create a Tuareg militia to tackle Aqim in the Sahara but these arrangements have not always proved easy to manage.
So a critical priority will be to ensure that military progress for the government forces and their allies is rapidly followed by humanitarian assistance and development support.
This will be essential to assist the long-suffering civilian population in the north and start to rebuild local faith in the capacity of a state whose patchy delivery of basic services and administration had contributed to the weakening of security in the region over recent years.
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An exhibition of art treasures from Bury, Bolton and other northern English towns has become a success in China. Could booming foreign nations offer cash-strapped British galleries a route out of financial crisis? | By Ian YoungsArts reporter, BBC News
When Bury paper tycoon Thomas Wrigley amassed a collection of 200 artworks during the Industrial Revolution, England was known as the "workshop of the world".
Bury Art Museum opened in 1901 to house Wrigley's fine collection.
But the industrial boom is now long gone. Like others across the country, the council-run gallery has faced the prospect of funding cuts.
China is now the "workshop of the world".
Industrial barons
So the jewel in Wrigley's collection, JMW Turner's sublime Calais Sands, has been dispatched, along with around 80 other artworks from Bury and 18 other north-west galleries, on a money-spinning six-city tour of China.
The venture was put together by Bury Art Museum manager Tony Trehy, who saw that art collected by industrial barons across the North West of England could be a big draw overseas.
He corralled other galleries to put their "greatest hits" together and head east.
"Put it this way," Mr Trehy says. "It's sufficiently lucrative that people have stopped talking about cutting us."
The exhibition is titled Toward Modernity: Three Centuries of British Art. As well as the Turner, it includes works by Constable, Lowry, Henry Moore and Lucian Freud, culled from collections in Chester, Carlisle, Salford and Stalybridge.
Chinese galleries pay to host the exhibition, which Mr Trehy is now hoping to take to other countries, and which could provide the template for further themed exhibitions.
"Assuming we can do it on a regular basis, it becomes a significant new source of funding for museums," he says.
Uproar over Lowry
While local council cuts are forcing some galleries and museums to reduce staff and opening hours, Mr Trehy believes income from foreign tours could eventually entirely replace public funding for some such institutions.
"If you've got the right works, if you've inherited the right artists from the Victorians or whoever, it is a licence to print money basically," he says.
"We're in negotiation with various museums in Japan and Taiwan, we're just about to start looking at making proposals to the Americans. I've had meetings in the Gulf about working with Emirates museums, but they're only exploratory meetings.
"The British Council are now talking about Brazil for the future because of the World Cup and Olympics."
Bury Council caused uproar in the art world in 2006 when it sold an LS Lowry painting to plug a budget deficit. The idea of taking a picture on tour is that "rather than sell it, we can essentially rent it", Mr Trehy says.
Foreign touring exhibitions are nothing new, but he says this is the first time it has been done by a consortium of regional British museums rather than a national institution with an established global brand, such as the Tate, British Museum or V&A.
"I think economic circumstances have made us more efficient and entrepreneurial," says Emma Varnam, head of culture for Tameside Council, which has contributed four works to Toward Modernity.
She runs the Astley Cheetham Art Gallery in Stalybridge, which was built in 1901 to house the collection of cotton mill heir John Frederick Cheetham. The gallery is a member of the new Greater Manchester Museums Group.
'Fantastic collections'
The Chinese venture has boosted both the finances and profile of the gallery as well as allowing staff to learn new skills, such as conservation, she says.
"From my point of view, it's fabulous to see these assets being used for the benefit of the community and being used hopefully time and time again so that people across the world will see these fantastic collections, with an economic benefit to that community rather than us having to contemplate selling those pieces."
Toward Modernity is also a rare example of a foreign exhibition venturing beyond the main centres of Beijing and Shanghai.
"In Beijing, for example, general public and press showed very high interest in this show," says Fei Xu, of the Beijing World Art Museum.
"For other provincial museums, this exhibition is the first foreign exhibition introducing British art, especially the oil paintings from famous artists of the UK."
Chinese galleries have been slowly opening up to foreign exhibitions over the past decade. The Tate took a major Turner show to the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 2009, while the British Council organised an extensive festival of UK culture to coincide with the 2012 London Olympic Games.
"More and more people in China are interested in British art and culture now," says Fei Xu. "Since the UK hosted the Olympic Games successfully in London last year, Chinese people are interested in its long history, its merging of different ethnic groups and the development process of Britain in the past decades."
Other countries, too, have seized the chance to tap into this Chinese cultural curiosity.
The Beijing World Art Museum, part of the city's imposing Millennium Monument, has also hosted exhibitions from Italy, Spain, the US and Mexico.
"China is building museums every week," says David Elliott, director of arts at the British Council in China. "Major things. They're huge. Massive infrastructure projects.
"China's leadership, which changed last month, has put a great emphasis on culture. The problem is they build all these great museums and theatres and concert halls but they kind of forget that they need to put things in them.
"So the Chinese are very interested in working with British museums."
This will all be music to the ears of UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller, who recently exhorted British museums and galleries to think of culture as a "compelling product" that the world wants to "buy into".
In a speech, she praised the Hay Festival for launching an Indian offshoot and Bolton Museums for taking its Egyptology collection to Taiwan and China, where it has been seen by more than a million people.
Ms Miller also mentioned the V&A in London, which regularly sends shows overseas. Anna Jackson, the V&A's head of Asian collections, says there has been a gradual increase in co-operation with Chinese counterparts over recent years.
"What's changing, I think, is the fact that now China is becoming part of that international world of exhibition and object exchange, which is relatively new," she says.
'Soft diplomacy'
The V&A's latest export, an exhibition from the museum's Indian collection, has just opened at the Palace Museum in Beijing.
"We're not just a museum in South Kensington," Ms Jackson says. "We're involved in quite a lot of these emerging countries - India, China, Russia. We have a good relationship with the Kremlin.
"We're thinking about doing things about Brazil. These are growing markets, in the same way perhaps that we first started to work with Japan 25 or 30 years ago, when Japan first started to hold international exhibitions."
Culture can help cultivate diplomatic and economic relations, too. When David Cameron visited China in 2010, the directors of the V&A and the British Museum went with the prime minister.
"People call it soft diplomacy, don't they?" says Ms Jackson.
For the Chinese public, this invasion of international exhibitions also provides proof of their growing global standing, Ms Jackson believes.
"These exhibitions get very high numbers. I think for people who live in Beijing, to have changing shows that come from different parts of the world, it really shows that they're engaging much more internationally.
"It's about their prestige as well as ours."
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The retail sector took a battering in 2018. | By Danielle HewsonReporter, BBC Radio 5Live
Some 40,000 jobs have been lost or are at risk.
Household names like House of Fraser, New Look and Marks & Spencer have been forced to close stores and take a long look at how they do business.
A profit warning from Asos , the online fashion firm, in December suggested that even the internet might not be retail's panacea.
So, is the industry on life support? Or is there something more fundamental happening?
And is technology part of a shift that could ensure the future of the High Street?
BBC 5 Live's Wake Up to Money team has been looking at the key technology trends that could ensure the future of retail.
Artificial Intelligence
Many of us will have unwrapped a smart speaker this Christmas but few will have thought about its value as a shopping tool.
"I think the day (most people) make purchases on it will be the day they don't look back" says Jon Copestake who has been researching the future of shopping for EY, the accountancy firm.
But he thinks artificial intelligence (AI) will be a double-edged sword for the High Street.
"I think that consumers will become much more time-poor and they are going to rely much more on algorithms or AI to actually pre-empt their shopping needs, that will free up time for them to focus on shopping with the brands and products that really engage them," he says.
"There will always be a place for consumers to go to shops, to experience things, but I think those things are going to be things that they care about."
Data
This year will be remembered as one full of scandals involving our personal data. However, experts think that data holds the key to the future of shopping.
Thread, the online personal shopping platform, uses customer information to help men, especially those with a fear of fashion.
The company launched six years ago as a purely online operation but Terry Betts, its head of business development, thinks Thread's ethos could work equally well on the High Street.
"I think what you've got to give back is something that is infinitely better than just walking into a regular store," he says.
"I guess essentially what we are building is a store where everything is in your size and your budget and we know you. We remember what you've bought and so we are only making suggestions based on what you tell us."
Mr Betts adds: "I think expectations are high right now. You just have to deliver something that's superior and that's where the loyalty comes."
Influencers
There may have been a bit of backlash around fraudulent influencer accounts but micro-influencers in particular are still hitting a sweet spot with key audiences.
That kind of personal recommendation has seen millions of pounds of advertising revenue shifted online and for one brand it's meant the resurgence of the Avon Lady.
Louise Scott, Avon's chief scientific adviser (pictured), says: "We have six million micro influencers around the world who are all about authentically recommending products, whether it be through social media or it be face-to-face."
A key part of Avon's turnaround plan, under chief executive Jan Zijderveld, is to make better use of different technology platforms, allowing the company to be more agile.
Ms Scott says: "I believe trends today are moving at a speed of light. My challenge as a creator of products is really all about recognising that a product, to be Instagram worthy, actually has to look beautiful as well as work."
Clicks trump bricks?
Wake Up To Money asked shoppers in Leeds about the future of retail.
Most told the programme that they believed the internet will take over from our High Streets as the main way we shop in the future.
But some experts disagree.
The High Street isn't dead, says Samantha Dover, senior retail analyst at Mintel. "It's the value, the brand awareness that having a physical store presence has that is really important to recognise."
She says the best performing retailers recognise that online and physical shopping are intrinsically linked as consumers compare prices and research products or use click and collect services.
Retailers will have to change though, says Mr Betts . "I think you're going to see retail as tastemakers. More local, more targeted and recommendation based."
You can listen to Wake Up To Money's Future of Shopping Special here.
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A man has discovered he had a live mortar bomb from World War One sitting on his mantelpiece for five years, police have revealed. | Its owner, who did not want to be identified, thought the shell had been deactivated when given it as a gift.
The man from Wormegay, Norfolk, gave it pride of place above the fireplace before his son decided to send a photograph of it to a collector.
He identified it as a live German Granatenwerfer mortar.
Norfolk police and a bomb disposal team were notified and a controlled explosion of the mortar was carried out.
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Motorcyclists visiting the TT races are being warned the open roads are not a race track after there were 95 crashes last year. | Police said three people died in the crashes involving people visiting the Isle of Man's annual festival, which is taking place between 27 May and 9 June.
Enthusiasts congregate to watch racers who reach speeds of up to 200mph.
The island's road safety campaign aims to encourage tourists to ride within their capabilities.
From 26 May the A18 Mountain Road, between the Ramsey Hairpin and Creg Ny Barr, will operate as a one-way system.
Acting Dep Ch Con Kevin Willson said: "The festival is one of the greatest spectacles on the sporting calendar and we want everybody to have fun and behave responsibly."
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There are immense challenges facing the next mayor of London. | By Sam Francis & Raphael SheridanBBC News, London
He or she will lead London's public health and economic recovery after a year of Covid restrictions, as well as being responsible for keeping the capital moving and making its streets safe.
The candidates for the four largest parties in London have now set out their policies on policing, the economy, housing, transport and the environment.
What do their manifestos say?
Covid recovery
London has borne the brunt of the economic fallout from coronavirus worse than any other region.
The next mayor of London will have a £19bn budget and plenty of economic levers at their disposal, although all of the main money-raising and spending decisions will be made by central government.
Sadiq Khan, Labour
Shaun Bailey, Conservative
Sian Berry, Green
Luisa Porritt, Liberal Democrat
LONDON'S ELECTION: THE BASICS
What's happening: On 6 May, people will vote to elect a mayor and 25 members of the London Assembly. Together they form the Greater London Authority, which governs the capital.
Why does it matter? The mayor has a £19bn budget, is responsible for transport and policing and has a role in housing, planning and the environment. The London Assembly holds the mayor to account. Find out more here.
Who is standing? There are 20 candidates running for London mayor and a full list can be found here.
Transport
The mayor sits as the head of Transport for London (TfL), which before Covid handled up to five million passenger journeys in the capital a day.
Since coronavirus hit, the government has provided £4bn in emergency funding to keep TfL solvent.
Keeping TfL running and independent will be a key challenge over the next mayoral term.
Sadiq Khan
Shaun Bailey
Sian Berry
Luisa Porritt
Crime and policing
About 30% of the Metropolitan Police's budget comes from the mayor, with the remainder coming directly from national government.
But the mayor has a key role in setting police policy and staffing levels. He or she acts as the police and crime commissioner for London.
Sadiq Khan
Shaun Bailey
Sian Berry
Luisa Porritt
Environment
What happens in London to deal with the environment and air quality is linked to national and global decisions.
However, the mayor has some powers over London's roads and can legislate to limit exposure to certain pollutants. The Congestion Charge and the Ultra Low Emission Zones both came from the mayor's office.
The mayor also has the power to put cycle lanes on London's main roads, although local councils are responsible for all other roads.
Sadiq Khan
Shaun Bailey
Sian Berry
Luisa Porritt
Housing
City Hall estimates London requires about 66,000 new homes a year to provide enough dwellings for current and future Londoners.
The mayor's main powers involve setting targets on numbers and affordability of homes, and then working with local authorities and developers to reach these goals.
He or she can also reject or approve larger house-building projects.
Sadiq Khan
Shaun Bailey
Sian Berry
Luisa Porritt
Read the manifestos of the mayor of London candidates below:
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A historical stone bridge in Cumbria has collapsed more than six weeks after it was damaged during Storm Desmond. | Bell Bridge, near Sebergham, was closed after cracks were found in the wake of flooding which devastated the region in early December.
The Grade II-listed single-track stone structure dates back to the 18th Century, and was used by walkers on the Cumbrian Way.
Following heavy rain on Tuesday it has now collapsed into the River Caldew.
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A £250m Center Parcs resort in Bedfordshire will pump £20m a year into the local economy, the company claims. | The holiday firm said most of its 1,500 employees at its newly-opened Woburn Forest village in Warren Wood would live within 15 minutes of the centre.
The site of the new park was previously used for commercial forestry.
Mid Beds District Council refused permission for the project in 2006 but Center Parcs successfully appealed against that decision.
Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce said the new attraction would mean "local people will have money in their pockets".
Center Parc's chief executive, Martin Dalby, said the resort will cater for 350,000 guests a year.
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Russian police have arrested members of a prominent group of hackers that leaked information about Russian officials and state ministries. BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg meets a "Humpty Dumpty" member hiding out in Estonia who explains why the notorious group did what they did. | In a restaurant in the city of Tallinn, Alexander Glazastikov tells me how he got into the business of stealing and leaking information.
"I was bored with my job, I wanted to try something else. Something interesting."
Along with former journalist Vladimir Anikeev, Glazastikov created "Anonymous International". The group became known as "Shaltai Boltai" - the Russian name for "Humpty Dumpty". Mr Anikeev is now under arrest in Moscow.
"I was like an editor and at the same time I did some analytics," Alexander explains. "When Mr Anikeev gave me downloaded mailboxes, I looked through them trying to find pieces of information which could be interesting to publish."
'Enemies of the Kremlin'
He describes the group's work as originally "a politically-oriented project in opposition to the Kremlin", with Mr Anikeev providing the private emails of "top Russian officials", as well as powerful Kremlin-connected businessmen.
"We wanted to make this information public," Alexander says. "We were ideological enemies of the Kremlin. Later, yes, there was some commerce: we sold something, or deleted old posts for money. But originally the project was to fight corruption."
The leaked information highlighted the scale of corruption in Russia.
"We did find some honest people," he says, "but I can count them on fingers of one hand. Almost everyone is corrupt."
Did the group ever try to hack the president?
"Putin is not an IT guy. But Medvedev is," he replies. On one occasion, Humpty Dumpty hacked Prime Minister Medvedev's Twitter account.
Eventually the group began to feel the pressure.
"Two years ago we heard rumours that Russian military counterintelligence is after us," recalls Alexander. "They were crazy after we published some information about locations of submarine bases, about renovations of these bases and their exact locations. "
He claims that in 2016 "a top official" of Russia's security service, the FSB, became Humpty Dumpty's "handler".
A gentleman's agreement
"From the beginning, the project was independent. But in the middle of last year Mr Anikeev informed me that a high-level official from the FSB had come to him - a handler or a middle man," Alexander says.
"He'd said: 'Guys, we already have information about you and your project. But we want to cooperate. So we will cover you - for your security. We will have the right of veto. Inform us the day before you publish anything. Maybe, we will ask you to publish something.'
"There was a gentleman's agreement. Mr Anikeev never told me the name of the handler."
"So, you had support at the top levels of Russian intelligence?" I ask.
"It was not support," replies Alexander. "As you see now, Mr Anikeev is in prison. This is not support."
In Russia three men are in custody in connection with the Humpty Dumpty case. There have been recent arrests, too, at the FSB. Among those detained is Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the FSB's information security centre. He's been charged with treason in the interests of the United States.
The Russian authorities insist there is no connection between the arrests at the FSB and the Humpty Dumpty case. But Russian media have speculated that Mr Mikhailov may have been Humpty Dumpty's FSB handler.
As for alleged Russian state-sponsored hacking of the West, Alexander denies that Humpty Dumpty was involved.
"We never had any interest in finding or hacking information about anyone outside Russia," he says.
"There was no other target. Our target was the Kremlin and people who surround the Kremlin."
Read more:
I ask Alexander how he sees himself: as a kind of Robin Hood, or a criminal?
"If you ask me, did I hack any mail account or not, I didn't. I received information. I read it, analysed it and put it on our website.
"Did I receive some dirty money? Yes. Maybe I preferred not to ask where the money comes from. Maybe that is a mistake on my part. But that's life. I'm not proud of it."
'I didn't buy a Bentley'
He admits that he knew the information was "probably stolen" but says most of what the group published was "a matter of public interest, so somehow it excuses me".
"Did you make a lot of money?" I ask. "No. I didn't buy an apartment, or a Bentley," he smiles.
Alexander says he plans to ask for asylum in Estonia. Is he worried the authorities here may send him back to Russia?
"I hope they will not. Estonia doesn't like the Kremlin. I like Estonia. And I don't like the Kremlin."
He is certain he will be arrested if he returns to Russia. "I didn't make treason," Alexander says, "but I touched government interests".
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A shoebox full of love letters between a courting couple has finally been returned home after 70 years thanks to well-wishers on Facebook, a stranger with a penchant for romance and a daughter wishing to fulfil her mother's wishes. | By Dhruti ShahBBC News
When Kim Rowe was sorting through her attic recently, she rediscovered the letters sent in 1948 and 1949 between a Norma Hall in Kent and a Bob Beasley in the British Army overseas.
Her mother had taken the letters 20 years previously when a neighbour in Aldershot, who had discovered them in her attic, told her she was planning to throw them in the bin.
"My mother - Cherry Vallance - took a look at the box and realised they were somebody's love letters and so she could not bear for them to be dumped."
Cherry even took the letters with her when her family moved to Somerset. She never got the opportunity to find Norma and Bob before her death in 2016. But when Kim came across the letters again this year, she felt it was important to find the couple and return the memories to them before it was too late.
She told the BBC: "I only read two of the letters for information purposes but not the rest as I feel they are private to the couple. Bob obviously loved Norma very much and I assume it was Norma who kept the letters."
Kim posted a picture of the envelopes on Facebook telling friends the only clues she had: "As you can see, Bob was in the forces and Norma lived in Kent. The postmarks are 1948 and 1949. Facebook please do your stuff".
She had no inkling that her call for help would lead to 11,000 shares and 1,500 reactions but most importantly an address and, subsequently a new pen-pal friend coming into her life.
One of Kim's friends on Facebook did some digging and told her the couple appeared to have got married in 1951 in Uxbridge.
"His name is Howard R Beasley. So maybe a Robert. So lovely to find these letters and know they actually did marry," was posted under Kim's original request.
Kim sent a letter to the address hoping it was the right family, telling the couple she had ownership of their letters but wanted them to be back in their rightful hands.
Norma Beasley, nee Hall, had indeed been an 18-year-old woman who met Bob Beasley on the Woolwich Ferry in the 1940s. Impressed by his banter, they started out as friends before the relationship eventually developed into long-time love.
Now aged 88 and living in Lincoln, she had no idea the letters the sweethearts had written while she was living at her parents' home and Bob was on military service overseas were even still in existence.
She was shocked to receive Kim's letter, especially as Bob had died just a few months previously in December 2018.
She hurriedly wrote back, delighted that the letters were coming home and astonished they were still in the original shoebox.
Norma told the BBC the couple married soon after Bob returned from his tour of the Middle East and Egypt and moved to the village of Iver in Buckinghamshire in 1951. Bob worked in carpentry with a specialism in building aeroplanes, while Norma became an office worker. They had five children and six great-grandchildren. She recalled their early exchanges.
"We would write to each other - first as friends - but then it became something more. He'd tell me about his life and I'd tell him what was happening at home. I don't think my life was as interesting as his out in Egypt.
"I didn't even like writing letters but I would write to him every week. I used to send him a magazine every week."
However, although she's pleased the letters are back in her possession, she admitted she can't yet face opening the envelopes and love notes without Bob there.
"The letters are still in the original wrappings I put them them in. I can't read them just yet."
Norma said she had left the letters at her parents' home but had no idea how they had got all the way to Somerset via Aldershot. She presumed her parents had left the letters behind accidentally when they moved from Kent to Christchurch in Dorset.
"Maybe Mum didn't take them and whoever bought the bungalow kept the letters and moved about. I just don't know - it's a mystery.
"I thought they had gone forever."
But that's not the end of the tale - Kim and Norma have exchanged telephone numbers and plan to keep in touch.
Kim told the romantics keeping an eye on her Facebook page that she spoke to Norma for the first time in August, describing her as a "wonderfully warm lady, with a lovely laugh".
They'll even continue to write letters to each other, with Kim adding: "There's a message here... in this age of electronic communication, write to your loved ones - on paper, snail mail - just once in a while."
Illustrations by Katie Horwich
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Security officials in the northern Sri Lankan town of Jaffna have agreed to scale down their presence in an attempt to bring the normalcy to the city where violence increased before talks between the government and the Tamil Tigers. | The regional commanders of the Sri Lanka military have pledged to human rights activists not to deploy security forces in front of schools in Jaffna.
It is agreed to deploy police instead, representative of the national Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Jaffna Rohitha Priyadharshana told BBC Sandeshaya.
The commanders and the representatives of the HRC and NGOs met on Wednesday to discuss the concerns of the general public.
Upon request, the security officials agreed to make special arrangements for public sector workers at road blocks, Priyadharshana said.
The delegation has also raised the concerns of residents in High Security Zones (HSZ).
Rohitha Priyadharshana told bbcsinhala.com that the HRC has received complaints from 1570 fishing families that they could not engage their way of living due to security restrictions.
The HRC was told by the security forces that the restrictions could only be removed after analysing the national security situation.
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Sir Elton John, Sting and Neil Young are among the stars who will appear at a concert to salute Bruce Springsteen before this year's Grammy Awards. | Springsteen has been named the MusiCares Person of the Year by the Recording Academy, which organises the prestigious US music awards.
The concert to honour Springsteen will be held in Los Angeles on 8 February.
The academy said he was chosen for "his exceptional artistic achievements as well as his philanthropic work".
Other artists due to appear include Patti Smith, British band Mumford and Sons, Mavis Staples and Jackson Browne.
The show will raise money for emergency financial assistance, such as rent, medical expenses and addiction recovery treatment, for "members of the music community".
Past MusiCares Person of the Year recipients have included Tony Bennett, Bono, Phil Collins, Neil Diamond and Aretha Franklin.
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Some of China's richest people have felt the effects of economic slowdown in the country, with their wealth reducing in the past year, according to the Hurun Rich List. | China has 251 people worth $1bn (£616m) or more, 20 fewer than last year.
However, the number is still a huge increase compared with 2006, when there were only 15.
It is the first time in seven years that the number of billionaires in China has fallen.
The Chinese economy has slowed in recent months with growth falling to a three-year low of 7.6%, compared with the previous year.
The benchmark gauge of shares listed at the Shanghai Stock Exchange has fallen 23% this year and the property market has declined, subdued by government measures to bring down prices.
Of the 1,000 richest people tracked by Hurun, nearly half saw their wealth shrink in the past year.
Topping the list this year is Zong Qinghou, from the beverage company Wahaha, who is worth $12.6bn.
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Originally the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess, in Oxford "Isis" is merely the name for the River Thames within the city's boundaries. And the name's been very popular in marketing, with businesses and organisations wanting to subtly vaunt their Oxford links. | But since the growth of the militant group known by some as Isis - an acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - has the word become too toxic for everyday use?
After all, there appears to be no way back for the swastika - originally a symbol meaning "good fortune" or "well-being" until it was purloined by the Nazis.
So who's rebranding and who's sticking with the name?
Isis Business Brokers
Dominic Marlow says his company, which sells businesses, is going to keep the name, although it triggered "an ongoing conversation that comes up on a daily basis".
However, he believes the positives associated with the name outweigh the negatives.
"I had a payment held up from the US, probably due to the name, and I had to go through quite a lot of extra money-laundering checks just to get registered as a payee by the US bank concerned."
He says the majority of feedback about the issue is positive and has been praised for not changing the name.
Isis Education
Isis Education, an Oxford-based chain of language schools, was rebranded in 2015 as the Oxford International Education Group.
Because its students are usually non-English speakers from overseas, the group had concerns about international perceptions of the Isis name, as well as issues about internet search engines and the results that might follow from someone looking for Isis training centres.
There were also a few "negative comments" for staff wearing their branded Isis T-shirts.
Oxford Isis Korfball
Annaliese Taylor from the club says it plans to keep its name, despite a "healthy debate at our AGM last week" about the issue.
She says the club, which was established in 2007, "is proud of its local heritage" and "is determined to have a laugh about it and keep it light-hearted".
"As a relatively unknown sport, we'd had a couple of comments that people would be less likely to come along and try out Oxford Isis Korfball Club due to the name.
"On top of that, walking around in our Oxford Isis Korfball kit and playing at tournaments outside of Oxfordshire can raise a few eyebrows."
For those more puzzled about the "korfball" than the "Isis", it's a game with similarities to netball and basketball.
The Isis Academy
The Isis Academy in Oxford changed to the "Iffley Academy" to protect its "reputation, integrity and image".
A statement issued by the school said it had changed name following "the unforeseen rise of Isis (also known as Isil and the Islamic State) and related global media coverage of the activities of the group".
Isis Boutique
The problem isn't just in Oxfordshire, though.
Now rebranded Juno Boutique, a clothes shop in Malvern was named Isis because owner Jill Campbell comes from Oxford.
Ms Campbell said some "very unpleasant" posts were made on social media about her shop, leaving her in the position "of thinking do I change the name or do I stick it out?"
When she opened a second boutique in Ledbury, Herefordshire, she decided to change the brand for both outlets.
"I have absolutely no sympathy with these monsters in Syria and it is for very innocent reasons that we chose the name," she says.
Isis Beauty Academy
The Isis Beauty Academy in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, was named by owner Carolyne Cross after the ancient goddess of rebirth.
As the so-called Islamic State became more prominent, life got difficult for the beauty school.
"We'd have people ringing up, saying 'why do you call yourself that, are you a terrorist group training students?'
"So we had to have a long think, and as bookings were dropping and so were student numbers, we changed the name," Ms Cross says.
It's now the Omni Academy of Beauty.
Who are IS and what do they want?
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The Duke of Cambridge has taken part in the military rehearsal for the Queen's Birthday Parade, also known as Trooping the Colour, for the first time. | Tourists may have caught a glimpse of the future monarch in uniform riding his horse Wellesley in The Mall.
As Colonel of the Irish Guards, Prince William inspected the troops ahead of the parade on 17 June.
More than 6,000 spectators watched the inspection in Horse Guards Parade.
There were more than 200 military horses on parade and 400 musicians.
Trooping the Colour has commemorated the birthday of the sovereign for more than 250 years.
It also functions as a display of army drills, music and horsemanship.
The Duke of Cambridge became the Colonel of the Irish Guards in 2011.
The last time the battalion trooped the colour in front of the Queen was in 2009.
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Actor Johnny Depp has caused controversy after he appeared to threaten US President Donald Trump at the Glastonbury Festival. "When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?" he asked the crowd.
It is a crime in the US to make threats against the president, so could his remarks get him into trouble? | What did he say?
As he introduced a screening of his film The Libertine, Johnny Depp asked the audience: "Can you bring Trump here?"
After receiving jeers from the crowd, he added: "You misunderstand completely. When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?"
The comment seemed to be a reference to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
"I want to clarify," he added. "I'm not an actor. I lie for a living [but] it's been a while. Maybe it's about time."
Could he be in trouble?
Under the United States Code (Title 18, Section 871), threatening the US president is a class E felony. Anyone who "knowingly and wilfully" makes "any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm" upon the US president could be sentenced to up five years and/or be fined. It also includes the vice-president and presidential candidates.
The US Secret Service is the agency tasked with investigating suspected cases. And US media reported that the service was aware of the actor's comments.
But, when it comes to statements made by artists, courts have usually declared the cases to be protected speech under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Stanford University Law Professor Nathaniel Persily told USA Today newspaper: "People are allowed to wish the president dead," up to the point they express a real intent to harm him. "To threaten someone you need words that encourage some sort of action."
It's not the first time, is it?
No. Singer Madonna said earlier this year that she had thought "an awful lot about blowing up the White House", sparking furious reaction from Trump supporters. She later said her remarks were taken out of context.
Reacting to the controversy, one Secret Service official told the New York Post that any action against her would depend on whether the remarks were considered a genuine threat - which could also be the case with Johnny Depp now.
The official said then: "It's all about intent. Is she intending to do harm to the White House or President Trump? Otherwise it will be characterised as inappropriate."
Other cases included rapper Snoop Dogg, who shot a toy gun at a Donald Trump character in a music video and comedian Kathy Griffin, who posted a photo in which she appeared to hold a fake bloodied head that resembled Mr Trump.
And earlier this month, a show in New York depicted the assassination of a Julius Caesar that resembled Mr Trump, sparking not only criticism but also threats.
Despite the angry responses sparked by all those cases, there was no public acknowledgment that officials were investigating them as genuine threats against the president.
But, after the storm caused by Griffin's photos, the Secret Service said on Twitter that it had a "robust protective intelligence division" monitoring "open source reporting and social media" to evaluate threats, adding that:
And here is an example of that: a man in the state of Illinois was charged this month with threatening the president after posts he made on Facebook.
Why so much controversy?
Perhaps it all goes down to the controversial nature of Mr Trump.
Artists say it is part of their work to be provocative and have often cited freedom of expression to protect what they do and to convey political messages.
But critics, including Trump supporters and the president himself, say many have crossed the line of what it is acceptable, suggesting a double standard when it comes to remarks against the president.
But during the presidential campaign last year, Mr Trump himself was accused by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, of inciting violence by saying that gun rights supporters could stop her from winning. He was not investigated.
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Talks over what to do with Bristol Rovers' home ground have been a long running saga. The club first mooted plans to expand the Memorial Ground in 2005. Those were later ditched in favour of a 21,000 seater stadium on the outskirts of the city. Here is how the story developed.
| 2005:
June: Bristol Rovers applies for permission to expand Memorial Stadium
October: The football club announces plans to develop the Memorial Stadium into an 18,000-seater ground.
2006:
September: Revised plans for the stadium are submitted
2007:
January: Bristol City Council grants planning permission to expand Memorial Stadium following a consultation.
2008:
January: Bristol Rovers and Bristol City Council sign the legal agreement that will allow work to start on the re-development
June: Plans are to be delayed by a year.
2011:
June: Bristol Rovers Football Club proposes a move to a new £40m stadium near the city's ring road.
December: Contracts are signed for a new Bristol Rovers stadium. The football club reached a deal with University of the West of England (UWE) and Sainsbury's so it can build a new stadium on university ground.
2012:
April: Hewlett Packard criticises UWE Stadium plans in its submission to the planning process, primarily on the ground that it would devalue neighbouring commercial properties.
May: A planning application to develop a supermarket on the site of a football stadium in Bristol is submitted to the city council.
July: South Gloucestershire councillors approve plans for 21,700 seat stadium on UWE land. They vote 12-1 for the development at Stoke Gifford subject to certain conditions.
November: Bristol City Council delays its decision on whether the Memorial Stadium can be redeveloped by Sainsbury's. It says it wants more time to consider the effect a stadium would have on traffic in the area.
2013:
January: Plans for a supermarket and 65 homes and apartments at Bristol Rovers' Memorial Stadium are backed by Bristol City Council. The plans are referred to the government for approval.
14 January: A petition on the Bristol City Council web site supporting the Sainsbury's plans is signed by 1,750 people.
March: The government gives the go-ahead for plans to build a supermarket on the football ground in Bristol.
September: Campaigners TRASHorfield submit request to the High Court for judicial review into the Sainsbury's planning application. The Green party donates to the judicial review fund.
November: A High Court judge rules a judicial review into plans for a supermarket at the Bristol Rovers football ground can go ahead. Bristol mayor George Ferguson and Bristol MP Charlotte Leslie speak out against it and urge people to sign a petition opposing the judicial review.
2014:
5 March: A petition in support of Bristol Rovers' plans to sell their football ground to Sainsbury's is handed in to Downing Street.
13 March: Judicial Review held at the Bristol Civil Justice Centre before Justice Hickinbottom. Bristol Rovers chairman, Nick Higgs, says it is "excellent news" a final decision will be revealed on 20 March.
20 March: Justice Hickinbottom dismisses the judicial review paving the way for the supermarket - and stadium - to be built.
2015:
20 January: Bristol Rovers confirms it will take Sainsbury's to the High Court in a bid to force through the deal - after the supermarket said it would pull out.
13 July: The High Court rules in favour of Sainsbury's saying the way the deal was structured was an "insuperable barrier to the club". Chairman Nick Higgs describes it as a "huge disappointment".
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The laws needed for Guernsey to hold a referendum will not be coming in any time soon, the Policy Council has decided.
| In 2002 the States agreed to introduce a system for referring vital issues to the electorate.
However, before any referendum is held, the laws would need to be drafted.
Members decided it should not be prioritised this year due to limited staff within the Policy Council and the heavy work load of the law officers.
The issue will be put before the Policy Council again in the second half of 2011.
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Kasabian's Tom Meighan and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder made guest appearances as The Who played a charity gig at London's Royal Albert Hall (31 March). | With the veteran rockers playing their 1973 album Quadrophenia, Meighan joined them dressed as a Bell Boy carrying suitcases during the song of the same name.
Vedder appeared to sing I'm One and I've Had Enough alongside the Kasabian singer.
It was the final night of a series of gigs by the likes of Noel Gallagher, JLS and Arctic Monkeys for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
With members of Kasabian and comedian Johnny Vegas among the crowd, Meighan initially took to the stage wearing a shiny grey suit before sitting on a moped and duetting with Who lead singer Roger Daltrey.
Staying silent between songs throughout the hour-and-a-half set, organiser Roger Daltrey finished by thanking all those who appeared at this year's series.
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Whenever the Duke of Edinburgh visited Wales with the Queen, protocol dictated that he walk two paces behind her. | To the crowds that lined the streets to greet them, this practice perfectly demonstrated his steadfast duty as royal consort. But it also belied the work he did in Wales independently of the monarch.
It was on his wedding day in 1947 that the duality of his role in Wales was made official.
That day, his father-in-law King George VI bestowed on him the title of Duke of Edinburgh. But what few people know is that he also made him the Earl of Merioneth.
His primary duty may have been with the Queen, but Prince Philip was determined to carve out a role for himself and the influence of that role was felt widely across Wales, at times not in the most conventional or obvious of ways.
His presence in the immediate aftermath of the Aberfan disaster in 1966, for instance.
His keen interest in the UK's first Outward Bound centre set up in north Wales was said to have been the inspiration behind the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme, which he founded in 1956 and has since expanded into 140-plus nations around the world.
But during those early official visits and tours of Wales he made alongside the Queen, the Welsh public lining the streets were preoccupied with the burgeoning symbiosis of the young couple's union.
Dame Shan Legge-Bourke, a former Lord Lieutenant of Powys, who is a trusted confidante of the Royal Family and whose daughter Tiggy was nanny to the young princes William and Harry, said: "They worked brilliantly together.
"They were devoted, the one knew exactly what the other's thinking. It was a hell of a partnership. Considering the job that they both did, it was a remarkable relationship."
In 2009, the duke became the longest-serving British consort, the partnership having come into even sharper focus in recent years as the couple reached their 10th decade.
He was - in the Queen's own words - her "strength and stay" during her reign.
"Beforehand they would often do separate trips," said Sir Norman Lloyd Edwards, who in his role as Lord Lieutenant of South Glamorgan from 1990 to 2008, managed countless royal visits to south Wales.
"It was in the last five years or so that I noticed they would go everywhere together. I think it was to give her a hand really.
"She tries not to, but he was always there for her to take his arm, going down steps, things like that. He was absolutely there for her."
Spool back to 1958 and it was quite a different story - the duke was making his own big impact in Wales.
Then he played a central role in a triumphant moment of the nation's recent history when he opened the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.
Many doubted the ability of Wales - the smallest nation ever to host the games - to pull it off.
But as Prince Philip - president of the Commonwealth Games Federation - presided over the games, in which 1,100 athletes from 35 nations competed at Cardiff Arms Park in front of 178,000 ticket holders, Wales was firmly in the global spotlight.
Some heralded the profile and success of the games as marking a sea change in the profile and the confidence of the country, in particular its newly-confirmed capital.
"You have to remember that at this stage Wales had only just got its own secretary of state and Cardiff hadn't long been confirmed as the Welsh capital," said Prof Peter Stead, a cultural and social historian.
"It was only as a result of the success of the Wales team in these games that the government was finally forced to officially recognise the red dragon as the flag of Wales.
"There wasn't the same sort of secessionist spirit here as you had from many of the African and Caribbean nations, but it did give Wales a sense of confidence in our own identity, starting a process which led to the establishment of the national Assembly, and which is still on-going today."
The field of physical endeavour, combined with service to others and personal development in young people, had always been subjects close the duke's heart.
Two years before the games were held, he had established the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme for young people.
The awards were based on the principles and philosophy of the UK's first Outward Bound centre, which opened in Aberdovey, north Wales.
It was established in 1941 with the aim of building resilience in young sailors for service in the Merchant Navy, so vital in the war effort.
The centre's pioneer was Prince Philip's mentor, German educationalist Kurt Hahn, who had also set up Gordonstoun School where the duke was educated.
"The award scheme was a good reflection of the values of Prince Philip," said Sir Norman.
"It demonstrated 'stick-ability' - a quality that he felt very strongly about. You had to give it a go and it was hard and there were times you wanted to give it up - you were cold and wet but you kept on with it.
"He was a disciplinarian and not giving up easily sums him up rather well."
Reaction to death of Prince Philip
In stark contrast to the success and celebration of sporting and youth achievement, just eight years later, Wales entered one of its darkest chapters.
The world watched in horror as news began to emerge of the tragic event unleashed upon a small mining village in the heart of the industrial south Wales' coalfields on 21 October 1966.
A total of 116 children and 28 adults were killed when a coal waste tip slid and crashed down a mountain, engulfing Pantglas Junior School and a neighbouring terrace of houses in the village of Aberfan.
Within hours of the tragedy, Prince Philip's helicopter had arrived. He later said he had never seen anything to compare to the scenes he encountered.
His personal interaction with grieving families and those involved in the recovery operation showed a side to the Royal Family which was not often seen in those days - it was one which was to become more and more prevalent and important as it evolved to resonate with modern-day British society.
Former royal writer and broadcaster Brian Hoey, then a newspaper reporter in Wales, was among the first journalists to arrive on the scene.
"Prince Philip came as an advance party on the Saturday morning and quietly moved among the villagers offering words of condolence before returning to Buckingham Palace and telling Her Majesty it would be more appropriate for her to wait," he said.
"He was briefed on the problems facing the recovery operation, which it had now become, again insisting on a total absence of protocol."
Just over a week later, he escorted the Queen in what was to become one of the most poignant and tragic royal visits of her reign.
"Both royal visits were very much appreciated by the people of Aberfan, for their compassion and approachability, and for showing that they cared," Mr Hoey added.
Jeff Edwards, the last child to be pulled out of Pant Glas School alive, said: "The Queen and Prince Philip went into a nearby house after visiting the cemetery where the children were buried.
"She was really upset and she had to compose herself before she went on to meet the families who had lost children and relatives.
"I remember being told that the duke was offered a Welsh cake made by Mrs Jones who lived in the house.
"He told her they were the best Welsh cakes he'd ever tasted. And from that time everyone in the village would say Mrs Jones, who used to live next door to us in later years, made Welsh cakes fit for a queen."
Mr Edwards, who went on to become mayor of Merthyr Tydfil, met the duke during a further three visits he made to Aberfan.
"He struck me as incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful," he recalled.
"And with a great sense of humour. I was showing him round a pharmaceutical company, Simbec Research, in Merthyr one time.
"He turned to me and said 'Simbec? Wasn't that the company which did the heart tablets?' I told him yes, he was correct, and that they'd also made Viagra. 'Oh really?' he said with a wry smile. 'Oh, we'll keep that one quiet'."
Dame Shan said he was "marvellous at chatting up people" and had "a terrific sense of humour".
She added: "We knew he was renowned for his 'interesting' remarks but he really was brilliant at making people feel at ease.
"He was especially interested in the young, whether it was the cadets, scouts, that sort of thing, he was extremely relaxed. During a visit to Welshpool, I recall him spotting a group of Army cadets and he made a beeline for them.
"Or he'd notice someone in the crowd who'd just been shopping and were carrying a dustpan and brush. He'd spot that and go and speak to them."
At times, the lighter side of the royals' public engagement spilled over into the familiar territory of those so-called "interesting remarks" the duke became famous for.
In fact the earliest recorded public gaffe was made in Wales.
It was in June 1956 when the duke arrived at the Plas-y-Brenin mountain centre and a reporter from the North Wales Weekly News was among the assembled crowd.
Sir John Hunt, leader of the first successful Everest expedition, was an instructor at the centre and he introduced Prince Philip to ex-servicemen of the British Legion.
"Is everyone here called Jones?," he exclaimed, referring to Wales' most common surname.
The reaction was good humoured, the North Wales Weekly News reported, as it was pointed out that there were a few Williams, Roberts and Evans there too.
This was the start of a series of faux pas to make headlines during the duke's long life, including one when he met an Eastern-style dance group in Swansea in 2008.
Beverly Richards, who was part of the Suhayla Dancers, said: "Prince Philip said 'I thought Eastern women just sit around smoking pipes and eating sweets all day'.
"I said 'we do that as well' and he looked us over and said, with a twinkle in his eye, 'I can see that'.
"We were stunned, then we all burst out laughing... We were not insulted. I think that it's great that he said it. He was very down-to-earth."
In 2016, he made headlines again - this time during a visit to open the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre.
The duke - visiting the city with the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall for the opening of the fifth session of the National Assembly for Wales at the Senedd - was introduced to a group of school children.
"He asked us if we could speak Welsh," the children recalled, "and we said yes.
"He said: 'You must have really good brains to speak Welsh'."
But his joke, and any offence it might have caused, must be seen in the context of the support and respect he had afforded the Welsh language.
Prince Philip was the one who encouraged a young Prince Charles to learn Welsh while studying at Aberystwyth University.
The duke later said it was his role as chancellor of the University of Wales, in Bangor, which he held between 1949 and 1976, that made him realise the importance of the language and culture to many Welsh people.
On that occasion, Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen, walked behind her husband, who led the procession into the stately, oak-panelled Prichard-Jones Hall.
Giving a speech on the importance of university education in post-war Britain, Prince Philip spoke in Welsh as he awarded honorary degrees to his wife, Prime Minister Clement Attlee and actor Emlyn Williams.
In a speech at Aberystwyth University in the 1970s he said: "I find it rather difficult to realise that I have been chancellor of the University of Wales for 25 years.
"But I do know that it has been long enough to begin to appreciate some of the qualities of life in the principality that are so much cherished by Welshmen.
"And this really was one of the reasons why I encouraged my son to spend at least part of his time as a student here in Aberystwyth."
Prince Charles studied Welsh and Welsh history and culture in Aberystwyth, leading up to his investiture at Caernarfon Castle in July 1969.
It was hoped that he would become a role model for youth at a time dominated by hippies and the "summer of love".
During the 1970s and 1980s, the duke was a regular visitor to Wales. But it was perhaps with the dawning of devolution that his role in Welsh public life took on new significance.
In May 1999 he arrived in Cardiff with the Queen at Crickhowell House, where the Queen signed a special edition of the Government of Wales Act, which symbolised the transfer of powers from Westminster to the Welsh Assembly.
In June 2006 the royal couple came to Wales to open the new Welsh Assembly building, when it moved to its current home, the Senedd.
Attending all five of the official openings of the Welsh Assembly - which is now called the Welsh Parliament - with the Queen, as well as more low-scale visits, the duke's busy schedule continued into old age.
And with that old age, the more robust side of the duke's character had perhaps taken on a gentler nature.
"I think he mellowed in his old age," Dame Shan said. "He was still impatient, but not so impatient as he used to be.
"Irascible? Yes, that's a very good word. You needed to watch your 'Ps and Qs' and if you brought up a subject or talked to him about something - if you got it wrong - he would say 'you're completely wrong on that' and explain exactly why you were wrong. He was incredibly well-informed."
There is perhaps one anecdote, told by Sir Norman, that more than any other sums up the duke's down-to-earth, inquisitive, informed and, at times, mischievous character.
Sir Norman had been escorting the Queen and Prince Philip for the first opening of the Welsh Assembly on 26 May 1999.
"There was so much happening that day, a big concert, cocktail party in St David's Hotel which was followed by a very select dinner party," he explained.
"At the dinner party there were four tables, with about eight people or so on each. The Queen sat on one, the Duke of Edinburgh on the other, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas as presiding officer on the third and I was on the fourth.
"A lady sitting next to me said 'anyone know what's happening to the soccer?'
"I said I didn't have the foggiest idea. 'Oh', she said, 'there's a big match tonight - Man U against Bayern Munich in the Champions League final'.
"I summoned a young waiter and asked him if he could find out the score. He came back and said the Germans are leading 1-0. A short while later he came back out and said Manchester United had equalised. Then five minutes later, Man U had scored again, the game was over and they'd won.
"I said 'are you sure?' He was only a young chap, maybe his first job as a waiter. He looked worried but said yes he was sure.
"So I said to him: 'Will you go and tell the Duke of Edinburgh?' He looked terrified and said 'what do I say?
"I said 'just say excuse me sir the lord lieutenant has asked me to tell you that Manchester United have won the European Cup' And so he went off looking grave, rehearsing the words under his breath.
"I saw him address the duke and the relief on his face was palpable having delivered the message. 'Oh splendid!' the duke exclaimed. 'Please go and tell the Queen.'
"That poor young man. His face was a picture."
Held with affection by many for his humour, his character was just a small part of the unstinting contribution and legacy remembered by so many across Wales.
His constant support of the Queen, the work he did here independently of her, at times out of public view, demonstrated time and again that he was a man who led by example to uphold his firm belief that duty and service were cornerstones of the monarchy.
Related Internet Links
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A man who died after being hit by a lorry at Harwich International Port has been described as a "caring and hardworking" father and husband. | Michael Abrahams, 50, from Harwich, died at the scene in the parking area on 26 November, Essex Police said.
A 46-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and released on police bail.
Mr Abrahams' widow, Star, added that he "always found a way to make people around him laugh".
"Mick was a loving, caring and hardworking father and husband," she said.
"We will honour him in the way he lived his life - full on."
Police have appealed for witnesses who saw the collision which happened on that Thursday at about 17:10 GMT.
Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]
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A prison camp in far-flung China, a monastery in Myanmar, the blistering hot Australian desert. None of them are everyday places but they are among the more remote global destinations on some of your travel itineraries.
| By Tom GerkenBBC UGC and Social News
People were inspired to share their stories after a pair of scientists from Florida, and their eight-year-old daughter, searched for the remotest spot in every US state.
A monastery in Myanmar
"I took this three days ago, at about 3pm near Nzakyi in Shan State, Myanmar," says Juliet Allaway.
"We were hiking to a monastery to spend the night. We are all in our 50s and 60s and it was a killer!
"The local people were all friendly and fascinated by me because I am a bit 'plump' and I was wearing loud Lycra leggings. It took about eight hours to get there.
"We slept on the floor under blankets and the night was endless with people snoring and thrashing about.
"Hasta ahora!"
A Wintery farm in China
"This is a picture of Fubei Bingtuan in the Taklamakan Desert in China's far west Xinjiang Provence," says Colin Hill. "I was sent there in 1994.
"It is a 10km-square state farm run by The Peoples Liberation Army/Peoples Armed Police.
"It is part-prison, part-army camp, part-commercial farm.
"The winter temperatures are extreme, being permanently below freezing from November to March, with -20C not being uncommon. The summer temperature can reach 40C for weeks at a time.
"Few westerners will ever get to see the inside of a Bingtuan. I am one of the few."
A desert in Australia
John Abell said he and his friends' "3,000km return trip" to be the first people to record their visit to a 'confluence point' nobody had visited before.
Confluence points are the positions on the globe where whole-number longtitude and latitude coordinates intersect.
"There is only a fixed number of the points," said John. "'Bagging' one is an increasingly difficult task as most of the easily-reached points are already gone.
"We were in south-east Queensland, about 140km north of the remote town of Birdsville, on the largest dry claypan in Australia.
"We rode motorcycles 1,500km from near Adelaide in South Australia to find this confluence point.
"Like reaching the North or South Pole, you can only be the first once - and my name is on S25 E140."
Everywhere else
Thomas Delio says he took this photo in September 1995 near the Erebus Ice Tongue, which can be found in Ross Island, Antarctica. He was in the U.S. Navy working at McMurdo Station when he stopped to take this photo with two emperor penguins on the way to the glacier tongue.
This photo was sent by Matthew G Okuhara, who is stood on the right with Private 'Stick' Williams in May 2004. He was on a British Army patrol east of Basra, near the Iranian border. The patrol was conducted by army reservists from the South West, UK.
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Isle of Man tourism numbers for the first half of 2014 have risen by 10%, according to official figures. | The industry, according to the Manx government, is now worth about £100m to the island's annual local economy.
The government figures also show a 7% rise in coach bookings since 2013 and a 4% rise in heritage railway visitors.
Head of tourism Angela Byrne said the improvements are down to increased media coverage, improved marketing and a strategy to "drive up standards".
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A Wrexham music venue has been ordered to pay almost £1,700 in costs for playing recorded tracks without permission. | The owners of Central Station, Hill Street, have since obtained a licence, London's High Court was told.
But it was playing Kokiri's Turn Back Time without a licence during a visit by an inspector from Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) last August.
PPL collects music royalties on behalf of performers and record companies.
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A man with 193 previous convictions has been jailed after leaving a "large quantity" of blood when he tried and failed to burgle a shipping container. | Police were able to match the blood in Buchanan Road in Currock, Carlisle, to Anthony Ronnie Sheckley.
The 49-year-old admitted attempted burglary and was jailed for 12 weeks at Carlisle Crown Court.
Sheckley, of Sheehan Crescent in Carlisle, attempted to break into the container which was used as a shed.
The container's owners found someone had tried to force it open with some form of tool between 5 and 11 February.
Sheckley could "offer no explanation" for how his blood had got on to the container when he was questioned by police, the court heard.
Judge James Adkin jailed Sheckley after hearing he had 193 previous offences on his criminal record.
Related Internet Links
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"We're in the business of making dreams come true." | By Chris JohnstonBusiness reporter, BBC News
Not the words of a Hollywood director or even a toy company boss, but what Bart Day was told during his interview for his role as head of marketing for Bailey of Bristol, which is one of Europe's biggest caravan manufacturers.
The company is the UK's oldest leisure vehicle maker and has been family-run since its inception almost 70 years ago.
Bailey sells some 7,000 caravans a year, generating annual revenues of about £100m and it plans to boost production to 10,000 a year in the near future.
This ambitious target reflects a healthy UK demand for touring caravans. Just over 22,000 were sold in the year to June - a 7% rise on the previous 12 months - while sales for the entire leisure vehicle market, which also includes motor homes and static caravans, rose by 9% to more than 56,000.
Brits remain Europe's biggest buyers of touring caravans and the UK market is second only to the US. John Lally, head of the industry body, the NCC, attributes this rise in sales to a change in holiday behaviour.
'Staycationing' is retaining and even increasing its appeal, he says, and we are going on more frequent, shorter holidays. "Tourers, motor-homes and caravan holiday homes are perfect for this."
But why do the British love caravans so much? For Bart Day it is partly the "British belief that we're all explorers; being able to do what you want, when you want", as well as a fondness for owning our "castle", even if it is on wheels.
Bailey caravans cost between £15,000 and £27,000. Despite the hefty price tags some consumers are opting to buy one, rather than spend money on a foreign holiday, says Mr Day.
The slide in the value of the pound since the EU referendum has made that decision easier for many, he adds: "Regardless of Brexit… people still want to go on holiday, 'staycations' are becoming more popular."
Global Trade
More from the BBC's series taking an international perspective on trade:
While some buyers were taken on caravan holidays as children, the challenge for the industry is winning over "those who have been brought up with Jeremy Clarkson blowing caravans up", says Mr Day - a reference to the TV antics of the former Top Gear presenter.
Almost every new caravan is now well insulated, with built-in heating and a toilet, but many still associate sleeping in one to waking up to condensed breath and frost on the inside of the windows.
That was the case for Dan Trudgian, who remembers being "very cold all the time" in a van on seaside holidays with his parents in the 1980s.
Yet a desire to go on holiday more frequently, prompted him and his wife Angela to buy a van a few years ago. Their first night banished those unhappy childhood memories for good: "All we needed was a duvet", he recalls, annoyed that he had wasted money on sleeping bags.
Despite initially focussing on a caravan as a means of cheaper holidays, he says it is the freedom to move on that has proved to be the main attraction. "You can park it wherever you want and wherever you wake up it's somewhere completely different. And if you don't like it you can move on. It's all about the adventure."
Finding there was a dearth of online resources for caravan novices like himself led him to start a YouTube channel. Some videos, such as how to level or clean a van, have had tens of thousands of views: "These are all things that people need to know, but no one has a clue how to do them."
Hull-based Swift, the UK's biggest caravan maker with 40% of the domestic market and annual revenues of about £200m, is also on a mission to introduce them to a new generation.
People who like going mountain biking, fishing or to watch motor sports are one group its targeting, says commercial director Nick Page.
"They might be staying in a caravan, but they're not caravaners as such. We're promoting a lifestyle, rather than the product itself."
As caravans now routinely come equipped with all the creature comforts of home, manufacturers have been forced to make them lighter, to enable modern cars to tow them.
Swift has eliminated timber from caravan frames, for example. "They're more aerodynamic and stable on the road, while active trailer control systems, which is similar to ABS, makes them far easier to tow and more fuel efficient as well," explains Mr Page.
Like its Bristol-based rival, Swift says that the arrival of personal contract purchases - a form of leasing - in the UK caravan market has made them affordable, as only a deposit is needed. This has also created a healthy second-hand market.
As well as buoyant sales in the UK, Swift is exporting its caravan; not only in Europe, to countries such as Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, but much further afield in Australia, China and South Korea, as well.
And for British caravan enthusiasts for whom nothing but the best will do, Swift recently began importing Airstream caravans - or "silver shiny bullets" says Nick Page - from the US. Each one takes about a month to be hand-built, reflected in a price tag that starts at about £70,000.
It is a long way from the £200 that Martin Bailey charged for his first caravan, made in a shed in Bristol back in 1948.
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A cow had to be rescued by fire crews in Cumbria after falling 30m (100ft) down an embankment and getting stuck in a tree. | Farmer Phillip Armstrong discovered the shorthorn heifer down the steep drop of a quarry after noticing it was missing from the farm in Sheriff Park, Penrith.
The 300kg cow was saved from plunging to the bottom after getting stuck on a sapling, the fire service said.
The animal was sedated by a vet and winched to safety using slings.
The 11-month-old bovine was left "sore and bruised" but is now back on its feet after Tuesday's fall.
Mr Armstrong's mother Sandra said it was a "happy ending in the end after a very stressful afternoon".
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Want to buy a newspaper? The not-very-funny joke is that it may not cost you much more than £1.50. Indeed, a peppercorn quid is probably going to be enough if you're willing to put Johnston Press out of its financial misery. | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
For that, you get the 'i' compact newspaper, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, the Edinburgh Evening News, the Yorkshire Post and around 200 local titles.
When you consider that the three Edinburgh titles, that share the company's head office in a middle market office block outside the city centre, were bought for £160 million only 12 years ago, that seems a pretty good deal. It's also well short of the recent market capitalisation, of less than £4m.
The catch, as you're probably already aware, is the £220m debt that comes with it - a vast hangover from a reckless borrowing binge before 2008.
That has weighed very heavily on this company, as it has laboured hard to reduce the lending pile from more than £300m.
That hasn't just been down to the strenuous efforts of successive finance directors. The labouring has been by journalists and advertising sales staff, who have suffered the consequences of under-investment and ferocious cost-cutting.
Slimline products
It's been a painful experience for many of the readers as well, finding newspapers that had been woven into their daily and weekly lives have slimmed, crumbled in quality, and risen in cover price.
They can get most of the articles in The Scotsman and other titles for free online, which has obviously undermined print sales with their more lucrative advertising. Growth in digital advertising was supposed to replace the declining print spend, but at Johnston, even digital ad revenue fell 7% in the first half of this year.
That was while classified advertising was down a whopping 28% in only a year.
The 8% annual cost that lenders have charged for their £220m has weighed heavily as well. And there is one way of looking at this that might make it a tad more attractive.
I'm told that a clause in the debt contracts requires that a change of ownership for the company means that debt would have to be repaid immediately.
So suppose a buyer with deep pockets or a better credit rating were able to fund that £220m at much lower rates of, say, 2%. That would mean paying only a quarter of the current annual interest bill.
It's still a lot of money though, on assets for which the future market looks uncertain, and for which a lot of additional investment is required if the titles are to make the transition to the world of digital news publishing.
Turning a profit
What marks this sale out is that it's not the way these things are generally done. It fits with the rules of the Takeover Panel, allowing potential buyers anonymity. But doing so in public is not usually necessary.
What you might expect is that Rothschild, the adviser on refinancing Johnston Press, would go out to find a trade buyer. At worst, Johnston could be pushed into administration, and with a pre-pack deal, all its assets could instantly emerge under the ownership of another publisher with the resources to invest and the incentive to consolidate with its existing portfolio of titles.
Whatever that publisher is willing to pay would go to creditors, with bondholders at the front of the queue.
But in this case, for 18 months or so, the bondholders have held out against refinancing options. A small parcel of assets were sold off. There was an attempt to reassure them that the pension fund could be passed on to the Pension Protection Fund. But still, no buyer has emerged.
The ebullient Norwegian, London-based entrepreneur Christen Ager-Hanssen, through his Custos Group, is Johnston's biggest shareholder with a 20% stake. He has talked of big plans to invest in the digital transition, blaming Johnston's management for ineptitude.
After much public criticism by him and an attempt at a shareholder coup, Johnston Press invited him in July to explain how he could do that. If he did, it doesn't seem to have come to much, yet - only his warning in the trade media that a pre-pack deal would face a legal challenge.
If there's still no buyer further down the road, and with that debt being repayable in June next year, it's hard to foresee an alternative to insolvency. That would hurt bondholders, shareholders and, to a lesser extent, pensioners.
But it might be a starting point for recovery for some newspapers, if these assets were to be sold on by a liquidator to companies with the funds to invest.
The titles are still turning an underlying profit. The Scotsman brand has potential if it gets investment. A company like DC Thomson, family-owned publisher of the Dundee Courier and the Press & Journal, could give it a try if it has the appetite for a challenge.
And across Britain, the 'i' - a recent addition to the Johnston stable of titles - has performed fairly well. It also seems unlikely to shut even if Johnston Press ceases to roll.
Scrutiny
Busy in the background to all this is Dame Frances Cairncross. She was commissioned by the Prime Minister to review the state of local and 'regional' media. (From London, Scotland's national newspapers are seen as 'regional'. I know - not my choice.)
This is a political response to the sense that a key element of city, town and community life is being lost as local papers close. They're doing so at a faster rate in England than in Scotland.
One response has been a top-slicing of funds from the TV licence fee, paid by most households, to pay for coverage by independent journalists of local councils. Without such scrutiny, who knows what councillors and officials would get up to?
Dame Frances, a former journalist and academic with a strong Scottish pedigree, is also looking at the power of Facebook and Google in controlling or shaping online access to news, and whether these companies have grabbed an unfair advantage over news publishers through the opaque means by which they sell advertising.
An opinion survey for the Cairncross review, carried out in August, points to more people reading national newspapers online than in print, which may be a first. There's a gap there of 28% to 22%.
It suggests also that people want local news. They tell pollsters that there is sufficient local news. Yet only 13% actually said they read a local paper, and 13% read one online.
That is what they politely call "a disconnect". In other words, opinion surveys tend towards demonstrating that the public can be frustratingly inconsistent.
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There has been a U-turn over plans to cancel off-island treatments for Guernsey patients in December.
| The cancellation of UK appointments was among cuts announced by the island's Health Department in a move to minimise an estimated £2.5m overspend.
Since the announcement University Hospital Southampton has offered a discount to the Guernsey authorities.
The 180 patients whose appointments will now go ahead are due to hear from the department by the end of the week.
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The execution of a Chinese villager - despite widespread calls to commute his sentence - has drawn criticism from those who say this country's courts have one way of handling the powerful and a different way of handling the poor. | By Stephen McDonellBBC News, Beijing
In early May 2013, Jia Jinglong was preparing for his wedding day.
He wanted to have the ceremony at his family home in Hebei Province, not far from Beijing in northern China.
However, just prior to the big day, his house was knocked down to make way for a new development.
Adding to his woes, his fiancee then called off the wedding and he reportedly lost his job.
Jia Jinglong felt it was all too much. He sought revenge for the upheaval in his life following the destruction of his house without proper compensation.
In February 2015, he took a nail gun and went looking for the village chief, the man he decided was to blame. Then the groom-to-be-no-longer shot and killed the chief, 55-year-old He Jianhua.
For this he was sentenced to death.
Class and injustice
In accordance with the rules governing all death penalty cases, his went to the Supreme Court for ratification. It was cleared to proceed.
There has been a major public campaign to have his death sentence commuted because of extenuating circumstances. Even some newspapers controlled by the Communist Party have been arguing that he should be spared.
But now word has come through from an official social media account run by the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court: Jia Jinglong has been executed.
Some outside China will be wondering why the general public and Chinese media might have felt the need to campaign for somebody who admitted to murdering his local Communist Party secretary.
Well it all comes down to class and injustice in modern China.
These types of forced demolitions are routine here. It would be hard to argue against the premise that for years this country's central government has turned a blind eye while property developers, in league with corrupt local officials, have bulldozed people's houses, using paid thugs to beat up villagers if they try to resist.
It is a way of clearing out pesky residents which continues to this day.
The "compensation" paid is usually nowhere near enough to buy an apartment in the same area, forcing evicted families to move to distant, low-grade housing estates.
How can I say this so confidently? Because I've seen it first hand time and again. I've seen the houses being destroyed, I've seen the crying families and I've seen the men sent in to silence them.
Ask pretty much any China correspondent and they will tell you the same thing.
'Pushed into a corner'
We are constantly approached by desperate people claiming their homes have been effectively stolen and destroyed. The BBC could do a story on one of these cases in a different location every week if we wanted to.
Because this is seen here as such a widespread abuse of power against the lao bai xing (the ordinary punters) there has been a view that - while murder is not to be condoned - Jia Jinglong was pushed into a corner; that the crimes against him should have meant commuting his death sentence to some lesser penalty.
After all, people will tell you, government officials and those in the upper echelons of society are saved from a lethal injection for much less.
These cases are posing a real problem for the Communist Party in terms of perceived legitimacy, especially when its reason for monopoly power is supposed to be delivering a more just world for the downtrodden.
In 2009, a 21-year-old woman working as a pedicurist in a hotel building was on a break, washing some clothes.
Attached to the hotel was a massage and entertainment complex called Dream Fantasy City. Offering food, drink, massages, karaoke and often prostitution, these types of establishments are popular with government officials.
When a local Communist Party figure approached Deng Yujiao asking her to stop washing her clothes and instead provide him with "special services" he fully expected to get his way.
She told him she didn't do that kind of work there. It's said he then took a wad of cash from his pocket and started slapping her on the face with it. He then pushed her onto a lounge and got on top of her. To defend herself she stabbed him four times with a small knife. One of the blows struck him in the neck, causing the director of the local township's business promotions office to bleed to death on the spot.
Deng Yujiao was charged with murder.
Her case drew huge waves of support from Chinese people using the Internet to campaign in her favour. To many, she was seen as a hero. Finally somebody was standing up to these small-town, corrupt and arrogant officials.
The social media posts were censored but the momentum could not be stopped.
Prosecutors dropped the murder charge and granted bail. She faced a lesser charge of "intentional assault" but was never sentenced. This was apparently due to her mental state.
There are considerable parallels in these two cases but certainly not in one respect.
Despite the public outcry there was to be no sparing Jia Jinglong.
His crime was committed in the new era of President Xi Jinping. Justice now appears to be more hardline and the Communist Party remains well and truly in charge of the courts and all that takes place inside them.
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There has been another confirmed case of hepatitis A in Caerphilly county, bringing the number affected by the outbreak to nine. | Seven of the cases are associated with Glyn-Gaer Primary School in Gelligaer.
The latest person is a close contact of a patient already confirmed with the infection and did not contract the illness within the school, officials said.
More than 200 pupils and 50 adults have been vaccinated as a precaution.
Public Health Wales is continuing to investigate the outbreak with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and Caerphilly county council.
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People across England and Wales with health conditions that make them vulnerable to coronavirus were allowed to spend time outdoors on Monday for the first time in 10 weeks. Some welcomed the chance to finally leave their homes, while others opted to stay indoors. | By Alice CuddyBBC News
Under the new rules, people who have been "shielding" are allowed outside once a day with members of their household, or with someone from another household while maintaining social distancing if they live alone.
More than two million people in England have been strictly isolating at home since March. They include cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and people with severe respiratory conditions.
A surprise announcement relaxing the shielding advice was made over the weekend. Family doctors were told about the new measures only hours before they were made public, a senior official with the British Medical Association said, and the Royal College of GPs advised extreme caution, saying it was not a green light allowing people to return to ways of life pre-coronavirus.
The government said it had engaged with leading health bodies in making the decision, and that it had relaxed the guidelines because levels of coronavirus transmission were significantly lower than when lockdown was first introduced.
But among some of those now free to leave their homes, there is a dilemma: should they take the risk?
'There are still too many people dying each day'
I've got severe asthma. I'm not going out - I don't feel comfortable with it and my parents really don't feel comfortable with it. I'm not willing to do anything that will worry my mum and dad more than they're already worried.
I've not had a chance to speak to my doctor yet - the last time I spoke to my consultant was earlier on in the shielding process and he told me not to go outside. I asked him about going in the garden and he said no more than an hour a day. I don't see how it's changed that much.
I did wonder if I was overreacting but then my MP tweeted that her mum is shielding and she's advising her to stay in her house and not follow this new rule of going out for a walk.
It's difficult because people are starting to talk about this "new normal" and starting again and getting on with their lives, and I'm still at home.
I think I'll go outside when my consultant says it's OK and when the infection rate drops a bit more. There are still too many people dying each day and too many infections each day for me to feel comfortable. The house has become very much a safe haven. It's very anxiety-inducing, the idea of going back outside.
Rachael Paget, 35
'I've been craving a proper walk'
I went out at about five in the morning into central Brighton. It was very surreal, very 28 Days Later - shops were boarded up, obviously no-one was around because it was so early. It was a very odd experience to actually feel some wind. There was a lone guy playing bongos and it felt like he was putting on a concert just for me.
I had a heart transplant when I was 16 so I'm on immunosuppressants. It had felt like we were a bit forgotten so when the announcement happened at the weekend it was a relief.
I live in a flat and we have a small balcony but it's kind of just stick your head out levels of space. This was the first time I'd really stretched my legs and had a proper walk, which I've been craving all this time.
I picked 05:00 because while I'm happy to get to go out I only really want to do it when there aren't other people bustling around. I wore a mask as well.
I'm going to give it a bit of time before venturing out in the middle of the day.
For now, I'm going to carry on cautiously.
Joshua Murray, 32
'Anything less than complete confidence isn't going to cut it'
I take immunosuppressants for a condition called myositis and have interstitial lung disease. For a long time it felt like people like me had been forgotten. Then we heard the news coming out which should have been great - I've been wanting to leave my house since the start - but the problem was the timing of the message. You can't divorce an announcement like that from everything else that's been happening recently.
We've got schools going back and the announcement about trying to get retail back on its feet. I live near a park and I can see people aren't socially distancing. Lots of prominent scientific voices are saying we're opening up too early.
And then at the same time you get an announcement saying the most vulnerable people in society are allowed to get a bit more freedom. It's a really confusing message.
When you're at the sharp end of this and you feel that stepping out of your front door is a gamble then anything less than complete clarity and confidence in the government and people trying to keep you safe just isn't going to cut it.
For that reason, I'm not planning to step outside my front door for three weeks. I figure that's enough time to see the impact of the easing of restrictions this week.
I think people like me who are living with the most dangerous realities of this have all become our own experts. I trust my judgment more than I trust the government's judgment at the moment.
Nick Lockey, 40
'I've missed walking the dog'
I have chronic asthma. At about seven in the evening we got the dog and walked about three miles to go and sit in the garden of a friend.
I've been out to the doctors a couple of times but it was my first time going out to do something other than that. I've got a pretty large garden so it's not been as traumatic for me as people in the cities.
I was a bit anxious but I suppose that's fairly normal. I had a mask in my pocket just in case.
I took the dog out again on Tuesday morning - it's something I've really missed. My wife's been having to walk the dog up to now so she's very pleased.
Karl Straw, 55
'I'm afraid of what will happen if I get it'
I have scleroderma and pulmonary arterial hypertension. I can't see the point in them easing the rules because how can it suddenly be OK to go out and be near other people. People aren't staying two metres apart. It doesn't suddenly go away so I think we're still in the same dangerous situation we were three months ago.
We got a letter at the beginning of all this saying to stay in shielding because of how dangerous it is for people like me to go out and get the disease but we haven't heard anything from our consultant since.
Things have to open up at some point and we have to go back to normal but I'm afraid of what will happen if I get it. I feel it's unfair for us all to go out as if it's normal when there are people still suffering from it and I'm worried about the NHS - it's not really protecting them.
I think we should have been slower to relax the rules.
Karen Waller, 60
'There's a whole different way of life'
I've got a lung condition that I've had for about seven years, but it doesn't really affect my life so it was a shock when I got the message that I had to shield.
I was really in two minds about going out on Monday and I was really cautious. I just went for a walk for 15 or 20 minutes.
It was a really surreal experience - no one expects to not go out for 10 weeks. I bumped into someone I know and had a brief conversation and I suddenly realised it was my first proper face-to-face contact with someone in 10 weeks. I was just talking gibberish - I think it's possibly affected my communication skills.
I realised there's a whole different way of life that I hadn't seen or witnessed - everything was brand new for me.
Glyn Shemwell, 49
Interviews edited for length and clarity
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A distressed swan has been rescued from a canal in Somerset after it partially swallowed a fishing hook and line. | A boat crew from Burnham-on-Sea rescued the cygnet after a volunteer from wildlife charity Secret World saw the bird in Bridgwater Canal on Tuesday.
After being captured with a net, the bird was taken to a vet for treatment.
Volunteer Mervyn Gratton said: "The bird was in a lot of pain, having attempted to swallow a discarded hook and line."
Related Internet Links
Secret World - Wildlife Rescue
Burnham-On-Sea Hovercraft
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A friend was mulling over whether or not to buy a ticket to see Jackie Sibblies Drury's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fairview at the Young Vic in London (its sell-out run had been extended). She asked me what I thought of the play. I said it was impactful. She said, so is a punch in the face. | Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter
I paused.
Maybe impactful was the wrong word.
It's certainly an awkward, ugly, uncomfortable word. Maybe, then, it was exactly the right word for a play that sets itself up as a comedy, but is actually a powerful polemic about race.
Was the play fun? Not really.
Was it entertaining? In parts, but it was also annoying and confusing: absurd, even.
Was it impactful? Yes, it was. In fact, it lands some blows so hefty and memorable that there were moments when it did feel like being punched in the face.
I, for one, came away feeling dazed and confused.
Did I like the play? Did I hate it? Did it work? Or, was it a near-miss? These are questions to which I still do not have answers.
What I am sure about, though, is Fairview is an important, provocative, mind-altering work of art, the like of which I have never seen in the theatre before.
It starts out conventionally enough.
We are in the bourgeois home of a black, middle-class American family. Beverly (Nicola Hughes) is peeling carrots for a celebratory birthday meal for her elderly mother, who is resting upstairs. There is music playing. Beverly is singing along while her husband, Dayton (Rhashan Stone), pops in and out, doing his bit here and there.
Enter Jasmine (Naana Agyei-Ampadu), Beverly's opinionated sister, who immediately turns an atmosphere that was already simmering with tension, up a notch or two.
Dayton can't be a good lover, she tells her sister high-handedly; it's obvious from the awkward way he "walk around like his balls all heavy."
Dayton's response is to offer Jasmine a nibble from the cheese tray, a gracious act at which she turns up her nose, and announces grandly that she no longer eats dairy.
Into this family gathering arrives Keisha (Donna Banya), Beverly and Dayton's gifted teenage daughter, who is doing very well at school but wants to take a gap year before going to college, which is against her mother's wishes.
And there you have it, a sit-com type set-up with lots of banter and some amusing sight gags. Theatre doesn't get more comfortable or conservative than this, with Jasmine posing upstage in front of an imaginary mirror, and Beverly hiding Dayton's old beer bottle behind a sofa cushion. I mean, it couldn't be more tame.
But then, as Jim Thompson, a 20th Century American writer of crime fiction once said: "there is only really one plot: things are not what they seem."
And that is the case with Fairview. Act II and Act III take the homely Act I between their teeth like a starving Rottweiler dog, and break its neck in a thousand places.
The theatrical fourth wall that Jasmine made such a fuss about accentuating when looking into the mirror in Act I, is not so much broken as smashed to smithereens with a sledgehammer, leaving shards of its imaginary glass all over the auditorium.
You see, this is not a play about a birthday party, even a Pinteresque one with all its menacing overtones.
Fairview is about something else altogether.
It is not a traditional play operating within the confines of a stage framed by a proscenium arch. It is Shakespearian in scope. All the theatre's the stage, and all the men and women in it merely players.
I won't divulge more - you'll find out if you go. But what I can say without risking spoilers, is the play's true subject is how white people watch black people perform and the effect that has on both parties. It is, to use a fancy term, about the white gaze.
As an art fan, I was familiar with the "male gaze", which is a pejorative term to describe the privileged position male viewers have been given in art. Put simply, the game has been rigged for their benefit: images are produced for the male gaze, most obviously in the genre of the female nude.
Jackie Sibblies Drury, Fairview's 37-year old black playwright, describes the "white gaze" in theatre as the effect a predominately Caucasian audience has on black performers, making the actors feel an otherness, while at the same time being expected to conform to racial stereotypes.
As with the male gaze, the white gaze is about inequality and privilege: how those subjected to it are diminished while the empowered beneficiaries remain blindly, smugly, oblivious.
Far from being a conservative play, Fairview is a radical, conceptually bold piece of theatre that toys with form like a cat plays with a mouse. Tropes and clichés are mischievously subverted, as are the limits of what theatre should be. There's a surreal humour evident throughout, which starts as a knowing wink before becoming increasingly dark and aggressive.
It's a week since I saw it and I still don't know what to make of Fairview, an intentionally divisive play with contemporary concerns centred around surveillance and identity politics at its heart.
I can't say I enjoyed it, but I will never forget it. And I'm lucky I had the chance to see such a remarkable work of art, which made me think differently about theatre.
It is difficult to sum up with a star rating, but easy to do so in a word, which is "impactful."
Recent reviews by Will Gompertz
Follow Will Gompertz on Twitter
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South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust (SCAS) is the latest ambulance service to become a foundation trust. | The move sees the service gain greater independent control from the government but remain part of the NHS.
SCAS chair Trevor Jones said the new status meant it would be "more accountable to local people".
The newly named South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust has recruited 8,000 public members but is looking for an additional 4,000.
Mr Jones added: "We look forward to working with members and our newly elected governors in developing our future strategy and service development."
Foundation trusts were introduced in April 2004. There are now over 100 in England.
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The funeral of the owner of Britain's smallest house which has become a landmark visitor attraction on the quayside at Conwy has taken place. | The hearse was due to pass the tiny red frontage of the house owned by Margaret Williams' family for generations after the service at St Mary's church.
The Daily Post newspaper paid tribute after her death at age 83, saying she was proud to have been born within the castle walls which surround the town.
The house is 72in wide and 122in high.
The property, which is listed in the records books, reopens to the public for the February school holidays.
Local fisherman Robert Jones was the last resident in 1900 and before that there were a string of other tenants, including an elderly couple.
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The contents may be controversial, there may be talk of backbench rebellions and attempts to rewrite the proposals. | Mark D'ArcyParliamentary correspondent
But when Parliament plunges into the procedural thicket that is the Budget, the legion of new MPs will discover it's much more difficult than they might imagine.
First off, you don't amend the Budget, you amend the subsequent legislation, the Finance Bill.
Second, the procedural mechanisms around it make that a rather baffling task. What MPs actually debate in the Budget debate is a series of resolutions on which the Finance Bill is brought in.
Typically, they describe the scope of the bill, and only the first one can be amended - and it is normally drafted in such a way as to make amendment a practical impossibility.
What MPs don't therefore get is an early opportunity to say "we want to do something different" with, say, corporation tax.
The opportunity to try and make changes comes with the Finance Bill, and the thing to watch there is which clauses are allocated for debate in Committee of the Whole House, and which are sent upstairs to the bill committee.
Budget peculiarities
Since the improbable 1970s alliance of Labour rebels Jeff Rooker and Audrey Wise, with the Conservatives under Nigel Lawson, which pushed through the index-linking of tax thresholds (very significant in those high inflation days), the government whips have been very wary of putting awkward squad backbenchers into a Finance Bill committee.
So any major action would probably have to take place on the floor of the House. The Labour whips will doubtless be seeking to force votes on aspects of the chancellor's plans that displease Tory backbenchers.
Keep an eye on backbenchers like Robert Halfon, who has led campaigns against increases in fuel duty for a decade, and the formidable duo of Andrew Mitchell and Dame Margaret Hodge, who will doubtless continue their long-running campaign for a register of the beneficial ownership of assets in the UK, and its dependent territories, to combat money laundering.
There are other peculiarities to the Budget debate.
The proceedings are chaired by the senior deputy speaker, Dame Eleanor Laing, as Chairman of Ways and Means. This tradition dates back to the 17th Century, when the Speaker was considered a stooge of the Crown, and MPs preferred to have debates on taxation chaired by someone else.
Test for Starmer
Dame Eleanor, incidentally, has a special role: before the chancellor begins, she is presented with a sealed envelope containing the resolutions to be moved immediately - these are any increases in duties on alcohol, cigarettes, or even fuel, that might be proposed.
But there's no peeking, and absolutely no pre-emptive lunchtime trips to the off-licence.
The chancellor delivers his statement, and then the Leader of the Opposition responds.
Saying something coherent about this massive and complex package of measures is probably the single toughest gig in the parliamentary year, so it will be a considerable test of Sir Keir Starmer's parliamentary abilities. The shadow chancellor gets her chance to respond the next day, when she opens the next stage of the Budget debate.
The debate lasts for four sitting days, concluding on Tuesday 9 March, and there's some attempt to give each day a theme, with particular cabinet ministers and their shadows opening, but MPs don't have to stick to those themes, so it's all a bit amorphous.
Meanwhile, in the House of Lords, a new plotline has emerged with the decisions of the veteran ex-health secretary, Lord Fowler, to quit the Woolsack early. Watch out for open auditioning by would-be successors.
Here's my rundown of the week ahead:
Monday 1 March
The Commons opens (14:30 GMT) with an hour of Education questions, and, as ever, that is likely to be followed by any post-weekend government statements or urgent questions (it's often a sign that something may be dropped into the agenda at the last minute, when the main business looks quite light).
In this case, the main business is a series of statutory instruments, secondary legislation to implement policies.
There's also a slot on the agenda set aside for Lords amendments. I think this may be for the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill, where there have been amendments to change "person" to "woman."
The adjournment debate sees Labour's Stephen Morgan hammering away at one of his party's major themes, the protection of leaseholders from fire safety remediation costs.
On the committee corridor, Housing, Communities and Local Government (16:00) has a follow-up session on the post-Grenfell drive to remove flammable cladding from tower blocks, with witnesses from the Association of Residential Managing Agents, the UK Cladding Action Group and the National Housing Federation giving their view of the government's latest proposals.
Petitions has an evidence hearing on an online petition on TV licensing (16:30). In formal terms, these are select committee sessions, but in effect they're mini-Westminster Hall debates. The star turn is Culture Minister John Whittingdale.
Treasury (15:30) hears further evidence on The Financial Conduct Authority's regulation of the collapsed company, London Capital & Finance, from the top brass at the FCA, Chief Executive Nikhil Rathi and Chairman Charles Randell.
In the Lords (13:00) proceedings open with the introduction of two new peers, Baroness Chapman of Darlington, the former Labour MP Jenny Chapman, who lost her seat in the 2019 general election, and Lord Etherton, the former Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice, who was the second most senior judge in England and Wales from 2016 to 2021.
Then, ministers face questions on allowing cadet forces to resume their activities, domestic energy efficiency and conducting relations with the US government "on the basis of sovereign equality".
Then peers polish off the relatively uncontroversial Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill.
Peers will also debate the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021, which, among other things, bring in a new fixed penalty notice for attending a gathering of more than 15 people in a private home or educational setting, or in an indoor rave.
The penalty for a first offence will be £800 (£400 if paid within 14 days) but doubles for each successive offence, to a maximum of £6,400.
Tuesday 2 March
The Commons begins (11:30) with Foreign Office questions.
The day's ten-minute rule bill, from Conservative MP Duncan Baker, aims to require high street banks to provide basic banking services through the 11,500-strong Post Office branch network, as a way of compensating for the loss of 14,000 bank branches since 1988.
This would replace a voluntary and, he says, unsatisfactory arrangement, and provide much better security for communities. The bill is supported by a range of backbenchers, the Post Office and the National Federation of Sub Postmasters.
Then, MPs debate a 0.5 per cent increase in compensation payments to pneumoconiosis sufferers, and lump-sum payments to mesothelioma sufferers.
That is followed by a general debate on Covid-19 and the cultural and entertainment sectors.
It's a busy day on the virtual committee corridor, with Education (10:00) focussing on the impact of Covid on education and children's services.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (14:30) hears evidence on fish and meat exports to the EU from Seafood Scotland, the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, the British Meat Processors Association, the National Pig Association and the National Sheep Association.
Foreign Affairs (14:30) continues its hearings on the Xinjiang detention camps in China, with witnesses from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Anti-Slavery International and Human Rights Watch.
In the Lords (12:00), the action begins with the introduction of Lord Khan of Burnley, Wajid Khan, a former Labour MEP for North West England.
Questions range across supporting the economy of Anglesey following Horizon Nuclear Power's decision to drop is bid to build a power station there, the financing of Transport for London, and a redress scheme for women and families harmed by sodium valproate following the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review.
Then, peers debate two important statutory instruments.
The first deals with the powers of UK Border Force officials operating ("juxtaposed") in ports in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. This order would give them the power to use reasonable force, to enforce compliance with UK immigration controls.
The second aims to prevent people from travelling to or from the UK, for security reasons.
Since the system began, in 2015, the Home Office has refused authority to carry around 8,000 individuals into the UK. The 2015 scheme has a sunset clause, meaning that it would cease to have effect from April 2022, and a replacement scheme has been fast-tracked because of Brexit.
Wednesday 3 March
A momentous Commons day begins (11:30) with half an hour of Northern Ireland questions, followed, at noon by Prime Minister's Question Time.
(There is no ten-minute rule bill - the legacy of an eruption by Alex Salmond before a 1980s budget, which led to a rule change.)
Then comes the day's main event, the 2021 Budget, from Chancellor Rishi Sunak. This kicks off a series of themed debates, in the following days, on the contents of the statement, extending into the following week.
The importance of the Budget means that there is no significant committee business clashing with it. But Transport (09:30) does have a session on the post-Covid future of the aviation sector, with Aviation Minister Robert Courts.
In the Lords (12:00), questions cover a report by accountants KPMG into loans to Northampton Town Football Club from the local council, the timetable for refugee resettlements under the UK Resettlement Scheme, and how funding replacing EU grants in Wales will be administered.
The main legislative action is consideration of the detail of the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill - where there are plenty of amendments from legal heavyweights on the sentencing rules for terror offences.
Thursday 4 March
MPs begin (09:30) with forty minutes of questions to environment ministers, followed by mini-question times for the MPs who speak on behalf of the Church Commissioners, the House of Commons Commission, the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body, Public Accounts Commission and Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission.
Business Questions to Commons leader Jacob Rees Mogg are followed by the continuation of the Budget debate.
The day's committee action sees Public Accounts (10:00) looking at the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
In the Lords (12:00), there are questions to ministers on the use of British Board of Film Classifications ratings for user-generated content on video sharing platforms, and government discussions with UK fishing industry representatives during negotiations on the Brexit trade deal.
The main event is a series of statutory instruments designed to allow England's local elections to go ahead in May.
These could provide an opportunity to debate the row around the government's view on what kind of campaigning is permissible under Covid regulations.
Other parties fear this will not allow them a level playing field, particularly because the government has issued guidance that getting activists to post campaign literature is not allowed.
And there are also questions about whether party leaders should be allowed to make campaign visits.
Finally, peers consider Commons amendments to the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill.
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A former Irish ambassador to the United Nations has warned that a UK withdrawal from the European Union could have implications for the political process in Northern Ireland. | Dáithí O'Ceallaigh told BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Business programme the relationship built up between London and Dublin could be put in jeopardy.
"It is very dangerous territory," he said.
"For the relationship between Britain and Ireland it is worrisome."
He added: "Within the framework of the European Union over the last 40 years we have built up a very close relationship with the United Kingdom in trade, in agriculture, but most importantly in working together to try and help the situation in Northern Ireland.
"All of these things are in danger of unravelling."
Inside Business is on BBC Radio Ulster at 13:30 GMT on Sunday.
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Checkpoints on the Irish border would be "static and obvious" targets for dissident republicans, the PSNI Chief Constable has said. | George Hamilton was giving evidence to the NI Affairs Committee which is looking at the future of the border following Brexit.
Mr Hamilton said he did not think police checkpoints were likely, however.
He said any border controls were more likely to relate to customs.
He said the PSNI's Brexit priority was preserving information sharing arrangements with the Republic of Ireland and replacing the European Arrest Warrant.
He added that this may need new legislation or bi-lateral arrangements.
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From shipwrecks to terror attacks to an air disaster involving Paris Hilton, it seems that almost nothing is off-limits for the prank shows that have become a staple of North African TV during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. | By Nesrine KamalBBC Monitoring
A recent programme in Algeria earned fierce criticism for fooling a renowned communist novelist into believing he had been arrested for "atheism and espionage".
During the segment, 75-year-old Rachid Boudjedra was forced by fake police officers to repeat the Islamic proclamation "God is Greatest" and utter the two Islamic testimonies of faith.
The programme, called We Got You was later suspended amid a wave of criticism from civil society.
TV has become an important part of the Islamic holy month, and broadcasters will often commission special programmes to draw audiences in as they break their fast in the evening.
Prank TV shows have risen in popularity, but have also earned criticism in recent years for taking things too far.
Staged terror attack
Egyptian actor Ramez Galal has established himself as a major TV prankster, with a series of programmes featuring celebrities in increasingly extreme scenarios.
In one edition, he fooled celebrities into believing they were on a sinking ship, surrounded by floating body parts and an approaching shark.
In another, victims were locked inside a supposed ancient Egyptian tomb containing bats, insects and a mummy rising from the dead.
In 2013 during a programme entitled Ramez, the Fox of the Desert, guest celebrities were fooled into believing the bus they were travelling on had been intercepted by militants.
The mock militants pretended to shoot the driver dead and then blindfolded and handcuffed the guests.
This was aired at a time when Egypt was witnessing a surge in terror attacks, particularly in the region of Sinai, where military convoys were often attacked by armed bandits in desolate areas.
Galal revels in the controversy. In a trailer for his show, he admits to "torturing his friends and fellow actors because he loves them".
And it may be that only the audience is being fooled. Sharp-eyed viewers often find clues signalling that the guests are in on the prank.
Some celebrities have confirmed that this was the case.
Fatwas
Tunisia's The Earthquake is another controversial programme which fools guests into believing they are experiencing a violent tremor.
In one episode, an elderly religious leader insisted on continuing to pray despite the ongoing quake.
The show was widely criticised on social media for disregarding the age and health conditions of the guests, who seemed genuinely scared.
Similar charges were levelled at Algeria's We Got You. Following the episode featuring Mr Boudjedra, one Algerian novelist said it was "unbelievable that a famous writer was ridiculously pranked with no regards to his age or fame".
Religious bodies in the region have recently issued fatwas (religious edicts) asserting that terrorising people for any purpose is religiously forbidden.
The shows are also criticised, like the slew of entertainment programmes aired during Ramadan, for being a distraction from spiritual dedication during the holy month.
Chasing ratings
Egyptian media expert Yasser Abd-al-Aziz told the BBC that the prevalence of TV pranks has forced production companies to push the boundaries of good taste in order to attract audience and advertising revenue.
But one popular show entitled The Shock appears to buck this trend, with more traditional pranks, rather than terrifying ordeals.
The show is filmed in a number of Arab countries, capturing reactions to staged situations such as a man violently scolding his wife, a student insulting his teacher or a child standing helpless in the cold weather asking passers-by for a coat.
It has won over audiences across the the region by exploring how strangers interact in dramatic but everyday situations.
As Twitter user @Nooruldeen89 put it: "Despite the acts being staged, The Shock awakens the human in you and makes you rethink your perspective."
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
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