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On 6 May, Bedfordshire will be electing its third police and crime commissioner (PCC) since the post was created in 2012. The outgoing PCC, Kathryn Holloway, of the Conservatives, has highlighted the force needs to make £6m savings over three years. What do the candidates make of the current financial situation? | The candidates are listed below alphabetically:
Festus Akinbusoye, Conservative
Mr Akinbusoye, 42, lives in Central Bedfordshire, runs his own security business and served as a special constable in the county.
He said the force was under-funded by central government and had between 200 and 300 fewer police officers than it needed, because "we are currently funded as a rural policing area".
He said the force needed to be as "efficient" as possible, but "we need to deal with the underlying funding formula".
"I will keep on banging on the door of the home secretary and the policing minister to make sure the planned funding formula review goes ahead," he said.
"We need to invest more in community-based and community-led policing, where officers are amongst the community, visiting businesses, where they're attending local events and they have that visible presence.
"If we're building relationships, we're empowering communities. We're encouraging them to provide us with intelligence and information in confidence, knowing that something will be done about it."
Patrick Hammill, independent
The 67-year-old, from Houghton Regis, was standing as an independent as he believed "policing should be free from party politics".
Already an independent councillor at Central Bedfordshire Council, where he sits on the development management committee and the Houghton Regis town partnership committee, he has a family member who has been a Metropolitan Police officer for 21 years.
"The county is very under-funded. It is funded as a rural small police force when we have urban crime issues in Luton and Bedford, and the crime levels require us to be funded to the maximum," he said.
"I would be fighting to fight those savings. I would be putting that to the voters.
"We need more officers to tackle crime across all of Bedfordshire.
"We need to look at Bedfordshire holistically and distribute resources as evenly as possible."
Bedfordshire Police
David Michael, Labour
Mr Michael, 67, lives in Luton and is a retired police officer, who served in the Metropolitan Police for more than 30 years.
He said the force was under-funded and he would make an "evidence-based presentation to central government to reconsider how they fund Bedfordshire Police".
He said the Home Office's funding formula "miscategorises Bedfordshire as rural police service, when we know the level of serious and violent crime does not reflect that".
His priorities were to "engage with local residents, wherever and whoever they are, whatever their backgrounds, to listen to their issues and concerns and prioritise those".
He believed a "holistic approach", where the police and local groups work together, was key.
"I give them [the electorate] the reassurance that I care about them and I will respond to every bit of the county whatever the issues and circumstances, because there's nothing worse than people not having trust and confidence in either the police and crime commissioner or the chief constable," he said.
Jas Parmer, Liberal Democrat
The 63-year-old lives in Clifton near Biggleswade. He was a Metropolitan Police officer for five years and has been a serving postmaster in Kempston for 33 years.
"Luton and Bedford have the same issues as big inner cities and we need fair funding for that," he said.
"What we have had in the past is just grants, and grants are not a sustainable way of running a police force."
He said without proper funding "Bedfordshire is doomed", and he would try to change this by lobbying the home secretary every week.
He said he wanted to create mobile police stations, where police were "in the community" and more pro-active than re-active.
"Visible policing is the best tool to prevent crime, and prevention is always better than cure," he said.
Antonio Vitiello, English Democrats
Mr Vitiello is a law graduate and, as well as being raised by a police officer, said he had served as a member of Thames Valley Police's volunteer support team.
He said he was opposed to plans to "asset-strip police stations to be sold off for houses, which are only needed because of the British political establishment's (Lib, Lab, Con) failure to control mass immigration".
He believed Bedfordshire was under-funded, along with "every police force in England".
"The British government sends too much of our English taxes to Scotland and Wales, whilst asset-stripping England," he added.
The Home Office has been asked by the BBC to comment on the police force funding formula as it applies to Bedfordshire.
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Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster'
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Geckos are among the superheroes of the animal world. | By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website
These colourful lizards can scamper rapidly up walls, scuttle along ceilings and even hang upside down on polished glass.
Yet the secret of their amazing climbing ability remained a mystery until relatively recently.
The underside of a gecko's foot looks like a tyre tread and is covered in millions of microscopic hairs. Each hair splits into hundreds of tips just 200 billionths of a metre wide.
The secret of this lizard's adhesion turns out to be the relatively weak intermolecular forces that draw materials together any time they get close.
These van der Waals forces nevertheless explain how a gecko can support its own body weight on just one finger, and a single gecko hair can lift the weight of an ant.
To un-stick, the gecko pulls its foot away at a different angle.
"What we're talking about is something that is about as sticky as sticky tape - it's not crazy glue," says Prof Kellar Autumn, who became intrigued by gecko adhesion after being funded to develop climbing robots by the US military.
Prof Autumn, from Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, added: "What is special about it is that it is controllable. And its controllability is based on geometry and physics, not chemistry."
The effort to uncover the mechanisms behind gecko climbing has already yielded synthetic material that sticks in the same way.
Stick, peel and re-stick a piece of existing adhesive tape several times and it quickly loses its clingy properties.
Prof Autumn and Mark Cutkosky, from Stanford University, compared natural and polymer-based synthetic gecko hairs using a machine that simulated gecko climbing. This showed both versions could be re-used some 30,000 times without losing their stickiness.
Synthetic adhesives could yield transformative applications in robotics, industry, medicine, sports and clothing.
But one possible use always comes up in any popular discussion: could they allow humans to scale walls like Spider-Man?
In 2007, physicist and engineer Nicola Pugno, from Turin Polytechnic in Italy, calculated that a person wearing gloves and boots made of carbon nanotubes and structured to mimic gecko feet could indeed cling safely to a wall or a ceiling.
Challenges would include wear and tear and the propensity for dirt particles to collect and inhibit stickiness.
The suit would have to work on every kind of surface and for long periods of time. But Prof Pugno says: "We are not very far, in my opinion, from a kind of Spider-Man suit."
Prof Metin Sitti, from Carnegie Mellon University, says the idea is "not impossible". Selecting a lightweight person and applying the adhesive to many parts of the suit (not just the feet and hands) would improve the chances of success, he explains.
But, he comments: "We get questions like: 'Can you carry a one-tonne weight'. And we say: 'Maybe, but that's not our biggest advantage'."
Several institutes have been developing robots that can climb walls - Stanford University's "Sticky-bot" can be seen in action here. Some scientists envisage "geckobots" being used to search for survivors in a burning building or disaster zone, to explore the rocky terrain of Mars, or even as toys.
But many in the field are most excited by more routine applications.
Medicine is one target area for these adhesives. They could spawn advanced bandages that can be removed easily after healing or gripping surfaces on instruments designed for delicate surgery. Since the mechanism works in the wet, it could be used to affix implants within the body.
Stanislav Gorb, from the University of Kiel, studies biological adhesion; his work also looks at the way beetles stick to surfaces.
He says gecko material has several advantages when compared with generic sticky tape. There is no "visco-elastic" adhesive to dry out, so it stays attached for longer and leaves no residue.
But he says that with current production methods, they are unlikely to replace classical sticky tape.
"Maybe in 5-10 years we will have a method that will make the tape very cheap - right now it isn't. Secondly, right now, the forces are in the range or even lower than traditional sticky tape."
Zip it up
Metin Sitti thinks gecko material could provide alternatives to current "closure" technologies, such as hook and loop fastening, zips and sealing systems on food packaging.
It is one area he is exploring through his company NanoGripTech, set up to commercialise his lab's gecko work.
Synthetic adhesives work best on glass; rough or uneven surfaces pose more of an obstacle. Getting high performance out of gecko material on a variety of surfaces and in different conditions represents the firm's first challenge.
"We have been focusing on what happens when the surface gets wet, oily, dirty and what happens when temperatures change from very cold to very hot," says Prof Sitti.
"The second challenge is how can you manufacture and sell this [material] at high volume and at low cost?"
Prof Sitti is working on this problem and expects within a year to begin manufacturing at low volumes.
A silicone-based bio-inspired adhesive made by German firm Binder has been on the market for some six months. Prof Gorb was involved with its development.
The company has been exploring medical applications and the "pick and place" technology used in clean rooms to precisely position components on to circuit boards.
"Clean rooms often work with suction systems. That generates dust and requires a lot of energy, which contributes to the cost," says Jan Tuma, managing director of Binder.
"We are only sticky on really flat, shiny surfaces. It depends on the pins per sq cm and at the moment we have 29,000 pins per sq centimetre.
"Geckos have more, but they have had millions of years to develop, and we have had only a few."
Prof Autumn says: "We can look to Nature as a giant library of design principles. The way gecko adhesives work is so bizarre and so different from the way that adhesives have been engineered, that I don't think we would have invented it."
[email protected]
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It is claimed that 22 million watched the coverage of Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk in Britain on the day, but the number who actually saw it live was probably rather smaller because it was an event that unexpectedly took place in the middle of the night, UK time. | By David SillitoMedia and Arts Correspondent
But for many who did manage to make it to the big moment, it was life-changing. Fifty years on, we speak to three people who have been contributing to a UK Space Project/AHRC project, Moon Memories.
It was not part of the plan. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were supposed to be settling down for a rest but the BBC's Apollo 11 programme presenter James Burke listened in to the communications from the lunar surface and realised they had changed their minds and were preparing to step on to the Moon. However, no-one could tell them when they would emerge. What should have been a short update programme at 11:32pm became the BBC's first all-night broadcast. Burke was a bit tense. If he had got it wrong, there would be consequences.
In Dagenham, Jackie Burns was 11 years old and sitting in the gym of her school. She, like most of her friends' families, did not have access to a television and so the school had opened its doors on a Sunday evening to parents and children. They had watched the coverage of the touchdown and the plan was to go home and return at seven o'clock to watch the first moonwalk. When news came that it might happen overnight, everyone decided to stay. The problem was there was nothing to watch other than the BBC's presenters talking among themselves.
"The children got very bored and they were getting up and running around," says Burns. "And the parents were chatting amongst themselves and the noise volume was going up. And there I am dodging trying to see and I am getting so frustrated with it, because I so wanted to see it. I burst in to tears."
In Ashford-in-the-Water, a small village in the Derbyshire Peaks, 13-year-old Nigel Shadbolt was heading downstairs. The rest of the family had long gone to bed but he did not want to miss the crucial moment.
"I was thinking I'd never been up this late," Shadbolt recalls. "We had a grainy Philips TV, I was crouched down in front of it thinking how loud can I have it because I did not want to wake people upstairs. I was just incredibly excited and also worried that continental interference would do for the whole project because in those days the TV signal would come in and out in the summertime."
Networks around the world had been trailing this for weeks as the TV event of the century. It was the culmination of 13 years of competition with the Soviet Union that began with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. In July 1969, both America and Russia sent rockets to the Moon but the world has largely forgotten the unmanned Luna 15 that crashed on to its surface on the same day that Neil Armstrong first stepped out of the lunar module. And throughout it all the astronauts were filming the journey but the pictures that were beamed back live were dark, grainy and black and white. Nevertheless, for a generation this was a shared global TV moment.
In the studio, James Burke, Patrick Moore and Cliff Michelmore were trying their best to keep things going without any pictures from the Moon. Finally at around 3:45am Burke began to hear definite signs that the astronauts were about to open the door and swing the camera out to show Neil Armstrong step on to the Moon. There was one overriding thought on his mind.
"The worst thing you can do is talk when an astronaut is talking," Burke explains. "And I had horror dreams the night before that he would be walking down the steps and he would open his mouth to say something and I would talk over the top of it so when he went out of the door I shut up and the control gallery asked if I should perhaps say something and it was at that point he said 'that's one small step.'"
However, the image of the Moon surface was at first upside down. And when it did right itself it was dark and grainy. Many of the shots we see today have been digitally enhanced to give us a rather better image than viewers saw in 1969. But for one 11-year-old Chris Lee who was sitting with his father (his mother and brother had long gone to bed) it was a moment he would never forget.
"I knew at that point that's what I wanted to do," says Lee. "I wanted to be involved in that side of life, those programmes, looking out in to the Universe."
A few years later Lee was studying space engineering at University and is now head of Science Programmes for the UK's Space Agency overseeing Britain's contribution towards a planned lunar space station.
Shadbolt is now a Professor of artificial intelligence (AI) at Oxford University.
"I think you can talk to an awful lot of people from my generation who were inspired by those extraordinary achievements."
And as for Burns?
"It inspired me but the best I could hope for in those days was to be a clerk or typist," she admits.
However, 50 years on everything has changed, Jackie is now a space artist and makes a living creating scientifically accurate artworks of planets, rockets and of course the Moon.
"It was an amazing thing to see and I was so affected by it.
"I was determined to get a bit of the action even though I was a woman and I knew I would always be an outsider of science but I was determined to get there somehow. And I did."
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The UK's 15-year-olds have risen to 15th in the world for science but they still lag behind the likes of Singapore, Japan and Finland. | More than half a millions teens around the world took part in the science test by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
It assesses how students could use their knowledge and skills in real life.
Rather than just being able to repeat back facts and figures.
Have a go at some of the questions the OECD gave us below and see how you do.
The study also looked into how much each country spends on education per person.
The UK is well above the average of £59,000 - with more than £90,000 per person from the age of six to 15.
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat
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In 2010 the British government designated the protection of computer networks as one of the country's most important national security priorities. In its Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) it pledged, "the National Cyber Security Programme will be supported by £650m of new investment over the next four years". | Mark UrbanDiplomatic and defence editor, BBC Newsnight
What exactly has this investment bought, three years on?
Speaking on and off the record to insiders - from the government, intelligence agencies and security industry - it is apparent that the achievements in defending the UK from this threat have disappointed many.
Much of the available funding may actually have been directed at improving the UK's ability to target other countries' computer secrets.
Some point out that even if everything had gone to plan, an investment averaging £162.5m per year over four years could only have a limited effect on such a huge problem.
Security experts estimate that there are about 50 million cyber attacks a year in the UK, a number which they say is growing rapidly all of the time, and they put the damage to the UK economy at up to £27bn last year.
Yet, even according to government plans, less than half the total money committed has so far been spent.
There are suggestions that early strategising consumed many precious months and that the Cabinet Office, which is supposed to be giving overall direction to the project, has not yet allocated much of the money to specific projects.
"Some people have… said we're saving money for a rainy day," Mark Phillips, who helped draught the government's strategy, and is now at the Royal United Service Institute (RUSI) think tank, says. "To which my response is that we already have a rainy day, we have a high threat already with cyber."
Francis Maude, the minister responsible for cyber security, disputed this interpretation in a statement to BBC Newsnight, saying:
"Far from abdicating our responsibility on funding, to date we have spent over one third in the first two years of the programme. We are on target and in line with our public spending forecasts. The rapidly changing nature of cyber threats to the UK demonstrates the need for a flexible cyber security response so we reassess our spending priorities on a regular basis as was always the case. This is a prudent, sensible, smart approach as we move forward into the final two years of the programme."
Even if the full £650m is spent, as those close to the policy insist it will be, it is apparent that this will be done over five years rather than the originally promised four.
The other striking thing about the capability that has been taking shape is its offensive character; official figures show that 59% of the planned spend is meant to go to the intelligence agencies.
"We can achieve a tremendous amount these days through remote exploitation rather than face to face meetings with agents," says an MI6 officer referring to attacks on computer networks.
"GCHQ's offensive capability gives the UK an edge," a former senior officer at the eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham told me, adding, "a large proportion of that money has [therefore] gone into those capabilities".
John Bassett, now at RUSI and formerly GCHQ's Senior UK Liaison Officer in Washington, adds that much of the new government funding has gone on, "existing programmes... designed to get a really strong grip on global situational awareness".
Is this just a polite way of referring to stealing others' secrets?
Mr Bassett suggests that understanding the threat to UK computer security requires the exploration of adversary capabilities.
This argument, that the UK's defence requires the penetration of other countries' computer networks makes it hard to define whether most of the British cyber-security spend is actually going on offensive work - hacking for want of a better term - or whether that activity only accounts for some of it.
However, everybody one speaks to within the circle of secrecy assumes that this type of activity has consumed a significant proportion, measurable in the tens of millions, of the UK's total spending on cyber elements.
That emphasis on offensive work is remarkable given that the SDSR and the government cyber security strategy published in 2011 explained the rationale for the new spending almost entirely in terms of protecting the UK economy and government from attack.
Indeed, at an SDSR press briefing in 2010 a senior government official who I asked whether the UK even had an offensive cyber programme declined to confirm that it did, although another official subsequently contacted me to say that there was such an effort.
Mark Phillips, who was present at many of the meetings that formulated both policies, told us that the offensive programme was "one of the two unstated objectives" of the cyber security plan. The other, he implied, was providing support to allies, which in an intelligence context is usually taken as a reference to the US.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) meanwhile has taken 14% of the new money for cyber security, spreading it more or less evenly between offensive and defensive roles, insiders suggest.
It has launched Project Watchtower - a series of programmes designed to crated a super secure cyber architecture for the MoD -in an attempt to secure the military's computer networks from sophisticated attacks, with experts suggesting some good progress has been made.
On the offensive side, the MoD has established its Joint Cyber Unit, based at Cheltenham. The impetus for the creation of this outfit, several dozen strong, came from Nato's bombing campaign in Libya, says one Whitehall player.
Ministers asked why the MoD did not have the capability to switch off the Libyan air defence system from afar by means of cyber attack.
One MoD insider argues that the UK is some way from being able to take action of this kind, or match the unleashing of the Stuxnet virus on Iran's uranium enrichment plant, widely believed to have been carried out by the US, although they have not officially admitted it, but that the hold-up is on the policy and legal front rather than the issue of technical ability.
There has been a lively discussion among Whitehall law officers about whether the use of such a cyber attack would constitute an act of war or could under certain circumstances, for example switching off power to a hospital, be construed as a war crime.
Increasingly it is in this area, the development of cyber weapons or disruptive malware, rather than in the long established game of stealing secrets - state or commercial - that attention is focussing in the security community.
In 2011-12, for example, the US Department of Homeland Security tracked 23 cyber attacks on companies related to the national gas pipeline system. They assessed that the targeted information would have allowed an intruder to blow up hundreds of compressor stations, blacking out the US energy grid, "at the click of a mouse". Oil installations in Iran and Saudi Arabia have also had their control equipment hit by malware.
Mr Maude stressed to us that the UK's programme is "not just about securing government systems, though it helps do that too, but underpins all our objectives in tackling cyber crime, protecting our critical national infrastructure and making the UK one of the safest places in the world to do business in cyberspace." He noted that the Economist Intelligence Unit has put Britain top among the G20 countries for creating a secure environment for networks.
Notwithstanding this accolade, there is widespread concern about the vulnerability of the UK's national infrastructure to attacks of this kind.
"I don't think anyone is any more secure than they were," said Rashmi Knowles, Chief Security Architect at RSA, a leading cyber security firm, when I asked her whether Britain's infrastructure is any better protected than when the government launched its initiative in 2010.
In part this stems from constant evolution of the threat, with hackers far more dynamic, constantly evolving new techniques, than the government bureaucracies that try to stop them. As for the work that has been done to thwart them, some sectors, such as banking, have a far greater interest in investing in secure networks than the likes of public utilities.
Nightmare scenarios such as hijackers taking control of an aircraft via its computerised systems, or shutting down a national power system or a country's entire internet, appear feasible in the light of the US gas pipeline case. To what extent such risks are exaggerated by security firms touting for business is open to argument.
What almost all parties in the cyber security sector agree is that awareness of the risks is growing. For the government experts trying to devise a response, the risk is that their solutions may be judged inadequate to the scale of that challenge.
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A 22-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man who was shot in the street. | Lewis Williams, 20, died from a shotgun wound to his face and neck sustained in Wath Road, Mexborough, South Yorkshire, on 11 January.
Six people, aged between 15 and 21, have already been charged with Mr Williams' murder and appeared in court in Doncaster and Sheffield.
They are due to stand trial in September.
Related Internet Links
HM Courts Service
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The issue of culling badgers in England has polarised opinion, within the town and the countryside, across the political spectrum and among the public. Few disagree that bovine tuberculosis causes serious hardship to farmers, and costs the taxpayer millions of pounds a year to control the disease. But there is very little agreement about everything else, including the interpretation of scientific evidence, policy making and wildlife conservation issues. So what are the different voices in the debate? | Adam Quinney, vice president of NFU
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is not as clear cut as you might think. It is the biggest challenge facing the UK livestock industry today and that is why something needs to be done now. No-one, including farmers, wants to cull badgers. However, it is a regrettable, but absolutely necessary step while TB increases its vice-like grip on our family farms.
In 1998 less than 6,000 cows were culled because they had TB; in 2011 it was more than 34,000. And every single one of those cows was culled to prevent them passing the disease on. It's a fact that TB exists in wildlife and no amount of culling of cattle will ever control this disease while there are still badgers spreading it further.
Since the link between badgers, cattle and bTB was established by Sir John Krebs in 1997, the farming industry has been seeking a long term solution to the problem. Trying to control this endemic animal disease cost the GB taxpayer £91m during the 2010/11 financial year, an increase of 44% on the previous financial year. We can only begin to reduce this cost if we carry out an effective badger cull in areas where badgers are known to have the disease.
It is very difficult for a farmer to prevent a wild animal from coming into contact with his cattle. But farmers are working hard to prevent potential contact and disease transmission to their herds through improved biosecurity.
Some measures that farmers take in bovine TB hotspots include raising feed and water troughs off the ground, trying not to feed cattle directly on the ground, ensuring doors to feed sheds fit well and are kept shut at night, storing feed in covered bins and fencing off badger setts and latrines.
Vaccination can play a part and the NFU fully supports the development of effective vaccines for badgers and cattle as we believe that they will play a role in the long term eradication of bTB. Of course we shouldn't have got to this point.
Bovine TB is hardly a new disease and farmers were promised a vaccine against the disease more than 20 years ago. However, at the moment the only badger vaccine available is in an injectable form. This means that you need to cage trap the badgers to vaccinate them which is practically very challenging and has to be done annually for a period of at least five years. There is currently no vaccine available for cattle nor an approved test that can distinguish between a vaccinated and an infected animal.
So in order to tackle this disease, we must reduce the reservoir of bTB in the wildlife. The proposed cull pilots due to take place this autumn are targeting two specific hotspot areas in the South West where the incidence of TB in wildlife is persistent and high; with the possibility of further culls in other hotspot areas in the coming years. Most of England is TB free and there are no plans to carry out culls of badgers in areas where there is no TB.
For those still in any doubt, this TB policy has been through two rigorous public consultations. It has also been upheld after challenges in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The policy is backed by scientists, vets and government who all agree that this is the best way of controlling the spread of this awful disease throughout the country. At the end of the day, we all want the same outcome: healthy cattle, healthy badgers and healthy countryside.
Gordon McGlone OBE, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust
My personal view, and that of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and the Wildlife Trusts, is that badger culling is not scientifically proven. It is an extremely difficult approach to tackling the disease and we don't feel that it is appropriate that it is effectively being portrayed as an essential part of bringing bovine TB under control. The Wildlife Trusts don't support it.
Biosecurity is absolutely key, and that is biosecurity in terms of the way that individual cattle and herds are managed and the separation of badgers from livestock, where there are substantial areas that could be improved. One-off capital investment can keep badgers away from livestock when they are being housed and I think that has to be something that is pursued more vigorously. The work done in Gloucestershire by the Fera (Food and Environment Research Agency) team has showed that when used properly it is 100% effective - badgers can be kept away from cattle when they are indoors or when they are in pens.
I think the wildlife trusts accept that the [badger] vaccine does not cure the disease; we accept it is not 100% effective. However, the research shows that vaccinating badgers does substantially appear to boost their immunity to bovine TB, which is a very good thing. I really don't understand why a vaccine that has been developed at huge public cost - over £16m - that has been shown scientifically to have a beneficial impact is not part of any government strategy. All the reasons given are cost and difficulty. Well, the badger cull is not exactly going to be cheap, it is not going to be simple and it is not going to have 100% effect either. And even more strange is that the modelling carried out by government, by Fera, has shown that if a badger cull is going to happen, then should badger vaccination be used as well [as culling], you get another 4-8% benefit. If you compare that to the 12-16% effect that the cull can allegedly deliver, that is not insubstantial. And yet it's being written off as inappropriate, the secretary of state is saying that it's not appropriate, that it is expensive, and I just think it is daft. If it was a human disease and there was a vaccine like that I very much doubt that people would say that we shouldn't be using it.
We must remember that farming is an industry even though it is a very personal industry. What industry would choose to take action against Britain's most iconic mammal, the one mammal that most members of the public would identify? If the badger cull goes ahead I think the farming industry will continue to receive very bad press which is one thing it absolutely can't afford.
If it is proposed to take out 70% of a population of a key mammal, that is going to have an impact. And it is not just about the fact that individual badgers will be killed, it is about this huge assault on part of the way that the countryside works, and I think that is what people have got very upset about - whose countryside is it? And this is where you get the real division between people who own the land and the people who live in it and I think that is what you're probably seeing through the e-petition - it is something really deep about our native wildlife.
Denis Leonard, cattle vet from Cheshire
TB is a disease with a long incubation period and is also slow and debilitating rather than lethal, which helps it to survive as an infection within populations, as an infected animal left to its own devices can spread disease for years to uninfected animals. As with most diseases the best way to rid a group of animals of the disease is to remove the source of infection (carrier animals - infected animals) and protect uninfected animals from future infection. In cattle this is done by regular testing and culling of infected animals aligned with restricting the movement of animals within herds known to be infected. In badgers nothing is done at all and hence the disease can propagate freely and extensively through this species. Because badgers and cattle eat together this lack of badger control renders any cattle controls completely ineffective.
Any serious attempt to control TB must involve the removal of infected animals and to that end I support the culling of badgers in infected areas. It is well known that partial culling creates an upsurge of disease due to perturbation of infected badgers, in other words increasing the movements of infection among the population by the badgers scarpering to neighbouring sets, potentially setting up a new geographically infected area. For this reason any cull needs to be very large and to be done with a significant margin around any geographical area that contains infection. It also needs to be extremely thorough, as leaving infection in badger populations is unfair to the badgers that are to be born in the future, or which migrate over time into the cull area, as they will become infected by the populations that we haven't cleaned up.
Due to the lack of backbone of successive governments this hasn't been done and hence the geographical disease area is now much of the west of England and Wales, so an effective cull would now have to be incredibly widespread. Because the government has run out of money it is forced into a position where it has to look at costs and therefore it has identified that if it reduces TB it can save itself quite a bit of money, so the possibility of a badger cull is now on the agenda. It is incredibly clear that the current policy of TB control is an abject failure, so carrying on as we are is doomed to increase the size of any effective future badger cull.
Farmers, vets and keepers of animals have always had to make hard decisions in the interest of the health and welfare of animal populations, both wild and domesticated. Similarly we have controlled verminous creatures and predators for the sake of human disease control and food since before records began. If this disease was carried by rats, people would be breaking the door down demanding we get on and sort it out. Because there are too many people who think they understand the countryside and disease control, but clearly don't, we are hamstrung by a lot of misplaced emotional nonsense.
As far as badger vaccination goes I am willing and in fact encouraging its use as an adjunct to the control of disease, but ultimately culling should be done as well to expedite the overall success of control of TB. Vaccination is still an unknown but I will do anything I can to get this disease reduced in our wildlife and livestock. I will help anyone who is trying to do something positive about controlling this disease.
Lorraine Morgan, Greenway Farm Caravan and Camping Site, Forest of Dean
I don't know the intricate science of it but I have gone to enough meetings and read enough about it to know that the argument is very flawed. The Forest of Dean markets itself on being this bucolic place where everyone comes to walk and cycle, spot wildlife, and photograph wildlife. To have an active cull area in the Forest of Dean I think can only do damage to its reputation. It is so cloaked in secrecy, and we have so many footpaths crossing so much farmland here, and high calibre rifles being shot at dusk, I think it is asking for trouble. This is a tourism area, we are now coming up to October half-term, which always brings people down here, it is the last big holiday before we shut and if they are right and the cull is in place by then, I can't advise people where they can go, where it is safe.
Once those badgers are gone, it is going to take a very long time to establish a population again. I think it is a recipe for disaster; it is going to be like a powder keg. Obviously they're not going to tell us where they are going to start culling so you're going to have marksmen firing at dusk when you have lots of people walking about. They say they are not going to do the shooting on Forestry Commission land or in the forest itself but there are a lot of footpaths around here that cross open farmland so that does raise concerns. As far as the Forest of Dean's reputation goes, it will be a very dark chapter in our history. If it goes ahead, it can only do us harm.
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World Sailing has announced it is to move its headquarters from Southampton to central London. | The world governing body for the sport of sailing has been based in the city for the past 20 years.
Kim Andersen, its president, said the decision was "in the best interest of the organisation".
It employs 24 staff who will need to relocate if they want to keep their jobs. The move is expected by late summer.
Geneva, Lausanne, Winchester, Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia were also looked at as possible locations.
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#towerlives, a week-long BBC festival of storytelling and music, on air and on the ground, is under way in and around the council estate tower blocks of Butetown in Cardiff.
Its aim is to give a platform to voices from a community often talked about but rarely heard.
In the second of its stories from the tower blocks the BBC news website talks to Tony Paris who was living in one of them in 1988 when he was arrested for the brutal murder of Lynette White.
His subsequent conviction went on to become one of the UK's most infamous miscarriages of justice. | By Ceri JacksonBBC news
When Tony Paris went for a night out with a friend to the Dowlais club in Butetown on 8 December 1988, he had no reason to think it was the last he would ever fully enjoy.
In the early hours of the morning he left the club and walked home to Nelson House, one of two tower blocks of flats in the area's Loudoun Square. He got into the lift, pressed the button to the 7th floor and once inside, crashed out in bed.
At ten past seven that morning he awoke abruptly.
"I'm lying in bed and I hear this bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door," Tony says.
"I'm at the end of my bed naked thinking 'oh God, it's the boys'. I get up to open the door. Because I think it's the boys, I just flung it open for them to come in."
His friends were not on the other side of the door.
What happened next would alter the trajectory of Tony Paris' life and set in motion one of the UK's most infamous miscarriages of justice.
Speaking from his flat just a few miles from his former home in the docks area, Tony says: "Stephen King couldn't write a better horror story than this."
But this was not the first 'horror story' of this kind in Butetown's history.
On 3 September 1952, 28-year-old Mahmood Mattan, a Somali sailor and a father of three, was executed in Cardiff prison for murdering shopkeeper Lily Volpert, a crime he did not commit.
He was the last man to be hanged in Wales.
There was no forensic evidence, the one witness at his trial had been paid to appear and even Mr Mattan's own defence barrister, his only hope, described him as a "semi-civilised savage".
His conviction was quashed 46 years after he went to the gallows protesting his innocence.
Tony Paris was about to endure a similarly nightmarish experience.
The hammering on his door that morning was the police.
"It was CID," Tony says.
"One of them jumps on me, pushes me up against the wall says to me 'are you Tony Paris?' I said yes. He then says 'we're arresting you on suspicion of murder'.
"It's funny how your mind works when you're under stress, it can go down a trillion different routes to come back with some kind of answer in a micro-second.
"I'm thinking 'What happened last night? Well, me and Herbie were in the Dowlais, there was no trouble, there was no nothing. What they talking about?'.
"So after my brain's gone round the block a couple of times in a matter of seconds and couldn't think of anything, I said to them 'who's dead?'. They said 'Lynette White'."
Lynette White had been killed 10 months before on Valentine's Day in an unoccupied flat above a bookmaker's in Butetown.
The 20-year-old sex worker's body had been mutilated. Her throat had been cut so viciously her spine was exposed. She had been stabbed more than 50 times.
Tony like many in the docks community had known Lynette - his father used to drink with one of her uncles - and, like everyone else, he was shocked by her death.
The police had issued a photo fit of a tall, white man seen in the area at the time. But house-to-house inquiries, media appeals, and a Crimewatch reconstruction, had led to nothing.
"I said to the police 'Lynette White? You're having a laugh," he says.
"We better go down the police station and sort this out, this is rubbish'," says Tony, who, by his own admission, was "no angel" but whose worst conviction up until this point was for shoplifting.
"I get dressed and we go down Butetown Police Station. These coppers are flinging photographs at me of Lynette lying there in the morgue. I pushed them back and told them 'I don't want to look at them. Why are you making me see that? I don't want to remember that'.
"Those photos are in my head to the day I die. God, that was terrible."
Tony was one of five men arrested - Stephen Miller, Lynette's boyfriend, Yusuf Abdullahi and John and Ronnie Actie.
No forensic evidence linked the men to the crime scene but police told them two women said they heard screaming and had seen them hanging around the flat the night Lynette was killed.
Stephen Miller had also made a confession.
"The police broke him down so much that he ended up agreeing to their scenario," says Tony.
"He wasn't there. He knew nothing. But the police were messing with his head. And then it turns out he has the mental attitude of a 10 or 11 year old, but he can survive on the street.
"But he ended up after I don't know, 15 taped interviews, agreeing to what they were telling him. He's just agreeing 'yeah, yeah, yeah' to what they are telling him."
The five men stood trial at Swansea Crown Court in October 1989. After 82 days of evidence, a retrial was ordered following the death of the judge.
The second trial in May the following year was at the time the longest-running trial in UK legal history, lasting 197 days.
The jury heard evidence from a stream of witnesses who put the men at the scene of Lynette's murder.
Tony said there were so many contradictions in their evidence he was convinced no one was going to jail.
"You've got these two witnesses saying they heard screams coming from across the road at the bookies and then you hear their explanation for how they got across the road to the bookies," Tony says.
"One is saying they went down in the lift, the other is saying in her statement we didn't go down in the lift, we went down in the stairs… you know these girls are lying and they were never there in the first place. I thought I was going home."
The evidence may not have stacked up but Tony was not going home.
While cousins John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted, Tony, Mr Miller and Mr Abdullahi were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
"It's the worst thing you can ever imagine," he says.
In an interview with Jeremy Vine earlier this week on BBC Radio 2, Tony told him: "Emotionally, mentally there isn't words to explain certain types of feelings when things happen to you.
"So I'm telling the police for months 'I don't know nothing, I don't hang around with these people and indeed if you're telling me these people were there, they wasn't there with me'.
"I don't know how many times; how many ways you're supposed to tell police officers you don't know nothing. Still you tell them, nobody's listening and you realise this is now very serious."
While serving his sentence in Wormwood Scrubs a campaign to prove the innocence of the 'Cardiff Three' became a cause celebre.
Among its supporters was Al Sharpton, the American civil rights leader, now a trusted adviser to Barack Obama.
In an address he gave in Cardiff at the time Mr Sharpton said: "I'm happy to be here to talk to you about the injustice that has happened to these three brothers. It is clear that it is only because of their socio-economic and racial status that they are in jail."
At lunchtime on 10 December 1992 after a four-day hearing at the Court of Appeal, the men's convictions were quashed.
Delivering his judgement Lord Chief Justice Taylor said of the police interrogation that led Mr Miller's confession "short of physical violence, it is hard to conceive of a more hostile and intimidating approach by officers to a suspect".
Tony Paris was a free man for the first time in four years.
But it was bittersweet.
Just weeks before his release, his father had died.
The pain of knowing he went to his grave without seeing his son vindicated and the belief that the strain of his plight contributed to his death will never ease.
"He was in his last stages and I went to Cardiff to see him with the screws," Tony says.
"They took the handcuffs off and went to the other end of the ward leaving me sat with my old man. My father was looking at me, looking at these strange guys then looking back at me."
"In prison I remember the priest came into my cell at five to 11. I looked at my watch. I knew my father had died. As soon as the key went in the door, I knew my father was dead."
Tony's life once out of jail was still over-shadowed by continuing suspicion.
"I was known as an extrovert, a club person, a night person," he says.
"I didn't want for nothing from life. I had everything. I was working, I could kick a football, I was married, had kids.
"When I came out of prison it was different. My boys wanted me to go out and I'd say 'no, I'm staying in'.
"The damage had been done. My life had changed, trust and faith in people had gone, I didn't want to be around people on buses, trains, anywhere."
In March 2003 Tony was walking along the street when he got a phone call from a friend.
"One of the boys called me," he says.
"He said 'have you heard the radio? They got somebody for the murder'. I said who they got? Jeffrey Gafoor he said. I'd never heard of him."
Gafoor, then a 38-year-old security guard who worked nights but otherwise lived as a recluse in the village of Llanharan, a 30-minute drive from Cardiff.
"I met my friend and he gave me the newspaper," Tony says.
"I sat down and read it. I cried for the first time since all this started. Prior to that I couldn't cry especially in prison, you can't show emotion or weakness.
"Remember now, I'm black, I'm little and I'm Welsh in an English jail. Wasn't good, wasn't easy at all."
Gafoor had been arrested after police picked up his 14-year-old nephew for a misdemeanour.
They found his DNA was compatible with spots of blood found under layers of paint on skirting boards at the murder scene when the investigation was re-opened in 2000.
But the teenager could not be guilty. He had not even been born at the time of Lynette White's murder. Detectives asked him for details of his relatives.
Gafoor was convicted in July 2003.
At his trial he said while he would never forget murdering Lynette White his memory of what happened was patchy.
He told the jury he could remember asking himself why he had "carried on killing her when I could have just left.
"I think I was very angry. I would be guessing if I said why."
And of the five innocent men who stood trial for a crime he committed?
Gafoor said he felt "terrible".
The witnesses who gave evidence against Tony at his trial were later convicted of perjury.
"The judge in their trial accepted the evidence they gave, that they were bullied to lie about us," Tony says.
"I don't know how you can be a police officer and deliberately make people lie about other people just to get a conviction and carry on your life with your wife and kids like you're doing the right thing."
Eight former officers, who strongly deny they acted improperly, were formally acquitted of perverting the course of justice when it emerged vital prosecution documents had been destroyed.
"A week or two later, the papers that were supposed to be destroyed were where they always were," says Tony. "In a room - 200 boxes, 200-odd boxes. It's just amazing."
"I can curse and swear," he says.
"Don't think I don't feel it, I just try to hold it down and be positive. I'm as full of resentment as anyone caught up in this but because of my upbringing, I know hate gets you nowhere.
"All it does is stress you out and makes you think stupid things. So what's the point? There's none is there?"
The community will always be his home, his parents having settled there from Nevis St Kitts not long before Tony's birth in 1957 when it was known as Tiger Bay, a multicultural district razed as part of a slum clearance in the 1960s.
"Living in the docks was brilliant," he says.
"I was brought up with all nationalities, all colours all religions. White boys, black boys, Somali boys Arab boys, Chinese boys, we didn't see that, we were just docks boys.
"We'd all leave the area to go to town together and if we found ourselves in a fight, we stick together."
That code of honour did not change when Tony was in jail.
He had got into one almighty fight and the docks stuck by him, doing all it could to help prove his innocence.
"They've always wanted to break us down, split us up," he says.
"There's this circle over Tiger Bay that will never disappear, never go away. That area will always be strong."
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A former police and crime commissioner (PCC) being investigated over possible criminal conduct related to social media use has resigned as a councillor. | Jason Ablewhite resigned as PCC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough last week after three years in the job.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating a "series of messages" with a member of the public.
He has now stood down from his position representing St Ives on Huntingdonshire District Council for the Conservatives.
A spokesman for the council confirmed a by-election would take place.
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Earlier this week, scenes of schoolchildren running away from tear gas fired by police in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, sparked condemnation and even a hashtag, #OccupyPlayGround.
Pupils at Lang'ata school were protesting at the loss of their playground. They had returned after a two-week teachers' strike to find it fenced off by a private developer. Agence France Press photographer Tony Karumba was on hand to record the demonstration and here he recalls the event. | Phil CoomesPicture editor
"My experience is that land disputes even with the potential of bloodshed and worse will generally not draw such zealous responses from police. I expected there would be some drama being that Kenya's now renowned activist and journalist, Boniface Mwangi was expected at the protest.
"When the kids forced their way past a police cordon at the main entrance to their school I thought to myself that any kind of confrontation would obviously have to be played down in the children's presence.
"I was rudely shocked when the first tear-gas canister was lobbed into the midst of a group of them.
"At first I was unable to react as a photographer and I stared aghast for some seconds at screaming, terrified kids scrambling over each other on to a nearby motorway and a ditch. I raised my camera just in time to get a group of them trying to race up a foot-bridge looking back wide-eyed at a cloud of tear gas.
"At that moment, I had no major concern for my safety, as it's a situation I've been through countless times before. The real challenge here to my profession was to watch hapless, shell-shocked kids, the older ones suddenly angry at what I imagine was the betrayal by the officers who, their elementary schooling has taught them, are there to protect them."
The story does not end there though as the BBC's Ed Thomas reports.
Here are some more of Tony Karumba's pictures from the day.
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Even though lockdown measures have eased a little in England, the "stay alert" guidance is still affecting daily life. Seven weeks on, some LGBT people have told the BBC they are in more danger than ever before. | By Ben HunteLGBT correspondent
Lucy, 21, from the north-east of England is transgender and has severe heart issues. After years spent living as a woman, she says she has "no doubt" her parents would bury her as a man if she was to die from coronavirus.
"They'll shave my long hair, put me in a suit, use my birth name and call me 'he' all the way through the funeral. The thought of my family doing it makes me feel so sick, but I know they will.
Lucy, who works in a call centre, says her health issues are the only reason she hasn't moved out of her parents' house.
"When I came out as trans, and I told my parents I would stop living as a boy, they basically said 'no'. They literally tried to beat the trans out of me. My dad told me I needed to find a girlfriend and sort myself out."
She says she can't recall her family ever calling her 'Lucy', but they frequently use her male birth name "by mistake".
"They have never accepted me being trans. Why would they when I die?"
Lucy does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), an official document which formally acknowledges someone's gender identity.
Krystyna Hebb, helpline manager at Mermaids, says not having a GRC leaves trans people vulnerable, however many find the process "too difficult" to go through.
"When living, a trans person can go by any name or gender. But after dying, if they have no legal documents, their family can take over. If their family aren't supportive of their identity, that can lead to problems."
A former pastor and Christian family support worker, Krystyna says "I actually refused to do a funeral in the church because of this. It is an awful thing to see, but the law is very clear."
Increase in helpline calls
Lucy Bowyer from LGBT homelessness charity, akt, says they're experiencing "a spike" in service use.
"We've seen more young people who are street homeless than we would normally in this period.
"The longer our young people are locked down, the more difficult their situations become. Many say they're going 'back into the closet'."
The Outside Project says their shelter had to operate around the clock because "other homelessness services have closed."
"Councils across the UK do not treat LGBT family rejection as domestic abuse and that stops vulnerable people getting emergency housing," Director Carla Ecola says.
Matt, 24, could be classed as one of those people.
Until last week Matt was living in the West Midlands alongside parents with a history of mental and physical abuse. After one incident, Matt was left with concussion.
"My dad was drunk one day and he said to me 'I won't ever accept you being gay and you will never bring someone home.' When I asked why, he told me, 'because it's not normal'."
During lockdown, Matt's family made fake social media accounts, to learn more about Matt's sexuality and identity. Matt was called "a disgrace" and asked to leave home.
"They called the police to remove me. I told them I'd rather be locked in a cell than with my parents."
Since being kicked out, Matt has been "sofa surfing" with friends and struggled to get support from LGBT charities during the pandemic.
"It seemed like all of these homeless resources haven't actually been able to help me at all.
"I've used up my savings, but luckily I've had people who can have me for a few days reach out from all over. If I didn't have my friends, I would be on the street."
Sunday 17 May is International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, which aims to raise awareness of LGBT rights violations.
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, executive director of Kaleidoscope Trust, says: "Across the world we're hearing from LGBT people who are being criminalised and penalised for being themselves, at a time when small organisations supporting them are struggling to continue.
"We need an international approach. Governments need to ensure the coronavirus response and recovery efforts are inclusive of LGBT people and their needs."
Follow Ben Hunte on Twitter and Instagram.
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Weight loss surgery should be rolled out to thousands more patients with type 2 Diabetes, draft guidelines published by health watchdog the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) suggest. But why can't overweight people just eat less and exercise more? One victim of "fat shaming" shares her story. | By Adrian GoldbergRadio 4's The Report
Zaneta Jones, from Newquay, lost 25 stone (160kg) after surgery, and her diabetes is now in remission. But this was not before she had dog excrement thrown at her after being accused in a national newspaper of wasting precious NHS resources.
She recalls the moment three years ago when she was abused.
"My son had an accident while playing American football and was taken to hospital. As we went in the door, we had people having a go at us saying, 'You're that family from the paper, you shouldn't be allowed in here, you've wasted NHS money - my father hasn't had the cancer treatment he needs.'
"I went and sat in the car, and I was too scared to go in.
"At the same time we had dog poo in carrier bags thrown at us. We were called the scum of the earth. It took a lot for me to go back outside again."
Teenage rebellion
Like many people with obesity, she had deep psychological and emotional problems. As a child in the 1970s, she was given slimming pills to counteract a family history of heart disease and her access to food was restricted.
When she started to work at the age of 16, Zaneta rebelled against her harsh dietary regime, and her weight spiralled out of control.
"At my absolute heaviest I was 40 stone and my BMI [body mass index] was 85," she says. A healthy BMI is classified as 18.5-24.9.
And what started as a teenage rebellion soon became complicated by fertility problems.
"I tried doing silly diets like the cabbage soup diet, things like that, every time I would lose five or 10lb and I would think, 'That's nothing to 40 stone,' and I did actually give up."
Zaneta even had her jaw wired, which she recalls "was 18 months of just having a pint of skimmed milk and a pint of orange juice a day".
"Yes, you lost weight - I lost 10 stone in that 18 months - but I was going to have a fertility operation and I didn't get it because I was 3lb overweight, so I then put on 11 stone," she says.
By this time Zaneta had taken to wearing men's clothes because there was nothing available for her size in women's shops.
And she did not only suffer diabetes - she had eye and kidney problems, high cholesterol and sleep apnoea - all caused by her obesity. She could only travel by wheelchair because her weight made walking difficult.
In remission
Far from eliciting sympathy, her size was highlighted in a national newspaper where she and her family were accused of wasting the NHS £1.2m in weight loss treatments.
The story still rankles on several levels. Zaneta says she was never interviewed directly by the paper, and that several important details, including the costs quoted in the article were inaccurate.
But even then, it was not the abuse generated by the newspaper coverage that made her change - more the fear that she would lose her life.
"The biggest shock was when I went to see my endocrinologist about my diabetes and she said if you don't do something you won't be here at the end of the year. And he referred me to have the gastric bypass," she says.
Before having the operation six years ago, Zaneta had to reduce her BMI from 85 to 60, and to assist her with dieting she had a gastric balloon fitted for nine months - effectively reducing the amount she could eat.
The balloon was removed just before Christmas, but there was a six week delay to allow her stomach to settle.
"You can imagine that for someone who is addicted to food, having to watch what you eat at that time of the year is torture," she says.
But she managed to keep her weight under control, and as for the gastric bypass itself, she says: "It's supposed to be major surgery, but it didn't feel like major surgery. I didn't feel much at all."
Zaneta is now in remission from type 2 diabetes and her other health problems have largely disappeared. She no longer needs a wheelchair.
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In Hollywood, North Korea is a favourite movie villain. But few know that the communist country has its own film industry, which serves as both a propaganda machine for the state and a passion project for late leader Kim Jong-il. | By Helier CheungBBC News
1. Some of the top hits were made by a South Korean
Kim Jong-il was a massive movie buff who ensured the film industry had ample funding during the 1970s and 1980s. However, he was reportedly unhappy with the quality of films produced by his countrymen.
He ordered the abduction of South Korean Shin Sang-ok in 1978, and forced the director to make films for his regime. Shin's ex-wife, actress Choi Eun-hee, was also kidnapped.
Shin's expertise as a director enabled him to make films with better entertainment and production values.
"Shin was able to use old fashioned formulas of North Korean propaganda, and turn them into great movies," Johannes Schonherr, author of North Korean Cinema: A History, says.
"He changed the quality of North Korean cinema… other North Korean films also became better under his influence."
Popular movies by Shin included Runaway, an action film that ends in a train exploding, and Pulgasari, a North Korean monster movie inspired by Japan's Godzilla.
Shin and Choi escaped during a business trip in Vienna in 1986.
Pulgasari had just been completed at that time, and Kim Jong-il did not want to admit that it had been directed by Shin, so all the credit was given to Shin's co-director, Mr Schonherr says.
Shin continued his filmmaking career in the US and South Korea until his death in 2006.
2. The worst actors were American
Many North Korean actors are said to be schooled at the Pyongyang University of Cinematic and Dramatic Arts.
But as propaganda tools, many North Korean films also required foreign characters, especially Americans, to play the villains.
"If [North Korea] needed foreigners to appear in a film, they would ask [foreigners] already living there," says Mr Schonherr.
"Pretty much everyone - foreign students, professors and sports trainers - could be asked. And people didn't usually say no."
However, they had no say in what the movies were about "and most of them were terrible actors", he says.
Some of the most well-known Americans were Charles Jenkins, Larry Abshier, Jerry Parish and James Dresnok, who all defected to the North in the 1960s.
All four starred as evil capitalists in a propaganda film series called Nameless Heroes in 1978.
Charles Jenkins later said that he had been forced to act in the films, and going to North Korea was "the stupidest thing" he had ever done.
James Dresnok, who is still thought to be in the country, is reportedly famous among North Koreans, who call him Arthur, after a well-known character he played.
3. The film will come to you
Cinemas are said to be popular, due to the limited options for evening entertainment.
"Watching movies is, or at least used to be, one of their favourite pastimes," Mr Schonherr says.
North Korean defectors he interviewed described pleasant memories of cinema-going in the 1980s and 1990s. "The cinema was where they would hang out with their friends," Mr Schonherr says.
However, North Korean films are also screened in factory complexes, collective farms and in army units, Dr Mark Morris, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge's faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern studies, says.
"It's not a matter of you buying your ticket to see your favourite film - you'd be shown a schedule of what will be screened and generally it's a good idea to show up!" he says.
A commissar would often be present at the screening, and ask people to give an evaluation of the film, Dr Morris adds.
As a result "people are very careful to read the political message of the films".
4. One message - promote the Great Leaders
North Korean films span several different genres - but they all share the same message.
"Everything goes back to promoting Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il or the party in some way," says Simon Fowler, a film critic and author of a blog on North Korean films.
In films set in the pre-Kim era, films will show "a contrast between life in the past, and life being much better [under the Kims]", Mr Fowler says.
For example The Flower Girl depicts North Korea under Japanese occupation, with its characters suffering under the oppressive rule of their landlords, who are backed by the Japanese.
Things only turn around when members of the Korean Revolutionary Army come in to overthrow the landlords, foreshadowing a better future in a North Korea "liberated" by Kim Il-sung's army.
Meanwhile, Mr Schonherr says that in martial arts films "the evil guys are always either the Japanese or the Americans."
Despite North Korea's ongoing tensions with Seoul, fellow Koreans are normally spared the villain-treatment. "If they are [South] Koreans, there's always hope, and they'll usually get educated or won over by the end of the film," Mr Schonherr says.
5. … But don't show them
While most films emphasise the importance of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, you will rarely see the Kims portrayed in the films themselves.
Instead, they are often portrayed indirectly.
"For example, in a war film, someone will pick up a call from Kim Il-sung giving a great military suggestion," Dr Morris says.
"Everyone will straighten their clothing when the call comes, and the General will pick up the phone as if it's a living, glowing object."
Similarly, Mr Fowler describes a scene in Marathon Runner in which the protagonist is shown running up a hill to try and catch a glimpse of Kim Jong-il's convoy.
While she misses the convoy, she is able to touch the tyre tracks his car has made.
"She is crying and overwhelmed because she's managed to touch his tyre tracks," Mr Fowler says.
6. The army also acts
North Korea's ties with its neighbours and its bitter history with Japan, which colonised North Korea from 1910-1945, mean that epic war films are a key part of its propaganda strategy.
"Structurally, the Japanese occupation is absolutely crucial for North Korean films," Dr Morris says.
"Kim Il-sung and the Manchurian guerrilla fighters were the revolutionary faction whose identity derived from fighting the Japanese… [they argued that] fighting the Japanese earned Kim Il-sung and his colleagues the right to be the representatives of the Korean nation."
The North Korean army runs a production centre specifically for making war films, Dr Morris adds. "They provide soldiers as extras for free, as well as the necessary equipment."
Lynn Lee documented North Korea's film industry in her work The Great North Korean Picture Show.
As part of this, she was given access to the set of a war film "featuring a cast of hundreds of soldiers", directed by North Korea's Pyo Hang.
In Ms Lee's documentary, the young soldiers acting as extras are berated by Pyo Hang for not showing sufficient sadness in a scene where they are forced to surrender their weapons to the Japanese.
In the end, the director is forced to use a magic solution to make them "cry" - eye drops.
7. Films feature strong women - and average men
While North Korea has always been led by men, its propaganda tends to portray strong female characters. Female athletes, soldiers, spies and even a traffic controller have featured in North Korean film.
The films show "strong, hard working women who sacrifice themselves for their leaders," Mr Schonherr says.
But while male heroes have featured in older films, especially martial arts, "there are a lot of weak men" in more recent films, he adds.
"Normally the women have to teach them how to be a good follower."
Dr Morris believes this fits in with Pyongyang's propaganda narrative. "The overarching figures in North Korea are men of the Kim family," he says.
"They don't really want rivals, so you don't have a male hero who exists in his own right as often."
And while the female characters may be strong, they ultimately know their place as well.
"Strong women [in film] generally end up having to get married - their lives are not considered complete before that," Dr Morris says.
8. Mr Bean made it into North Korea
While the media and internet are tightly controlled, foreign films occasionally make it in.
Foreign films are screened at the Pyongyang International Film Festival, which takes place once every two years. Past films include British films Mr Bean and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Evita is thought to be the only US film screened in North Korea.
Outside the festival, it is rare for North Koreans to be offered foreign films. However, football comedy Bend it like Beckham became the first Western-made film to be shown on North Korean TV in 2010, as part of the British embassy's efforts to engage with Pyongyang.
The film was thought to be especially appropriate given North Korea's love of football, and Britain's ambassador in Pyongyang at the time, Peter Hughes, said that the film seemed well received.
9. Bikes are banned
Some foreign filmmakers have been allowed into North Korea, offering an insight into how the censors think.
When filmmakers Lynn Lee and James Leong were given access to film their documentary on North Korean cinema, they had to abide by strict conditions, including allowing their footage to be shown to censors at the end of each day.
As they were chaperoned during their visit, the odds of them recording anything controversial were relatively limited. But even then, the censors came up with some surprising restrictions.
"The censors didn't like [shots of] people on bicycles or people with their shirt buttons undone," Ms Lee says. Shots including electric cabling in the streets were also banned from the film.
"I think... they wanted the city and the people to seem tidy, and not sloppy," Ms Lee says. "I can only hazard a guess because we never got to meet the censors ourselves."
10. Frame the Kims properly
Another sticking point for Ms Lee was how images of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il were framed.
"The censors didn't like shots that framed images of the leaders in an incomplete way," Ms Lee says. "They all had to be framed full on. If you cut off part of an image or a statue that footage would be rejected."
"This presented some problems because there were lots of images everywhere, and sometimes you don't even realise it's there when the camera is focusing on someone in front of them."
An entire section of her film, The Great North Korean Picture Show, had to be reshot, because it was set at the North Korean film museum and the images of the Kims weren't framed to the censors' liking.
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Complaints about brutal policing in Nigeria today echo the reaction to the shooting dead by colonial policemen of striking coalminers in 1949 and, as the BBC's Nduka Orjinmo reports, there are some who believe there is a direct connection. | When the ikoro sounded on the afternoon of 18 November 1949, schoolboy Godwin Aniagbo knew something was wrong.
In traditional Igbo society, the ikoro, a huge hollowed wooden drum mostly carved out of the tough and dense iroko tree, sat permanently in the town square and only sounded in times of grave crisis or to summon people to an important meeting.
Hours before, on his way back from school with some friends, Mr Aniagbo had run into members of the colonial police looking like they were expecting trouble.
There had been days of tension following protests at a local coal mine.
"I saw the Europeans, [about six of them] sitting on the railway line... with their rifles in the centre of the railway.
"They called us to come to them but we were afraid and ran away," he told the BBC, casting his mind back to his early teenage years.
Not long after he got to his home in Iva Valley, in the city of Enugu, he heard gunshots and then the ikoro sounded.
The colonial police, made up of Nigerians and Europeans, had shot striking workers demanding better working conditions at the Iva Valley coal mine in south-eastern Nigeria, killing at least 21 miners and injuring many others.
Local celebrity
"People were running everywhere... many [of those coming back from the mines] were injured," Mr Aniagbo, now in his 80s, said.
Curious to know what had really happened, he set off for the mines, but at some point the crowd was too thick to push through so a disappointed Mr Aniabgo returned home.
As one of a handful of people from that time still alive to tell the story of the massacre, Mr Aniagbo is something of a local celebrity.
The incident led to further strikes mostly in southern Nigeria and some argue it helped galvanise support for the burgeoning anti-colonial movement that led to independence 11 years later.
During an official investigation, the police defended the shootings by saying they feared being overwhelmed.
But among those that the inquiry blamed were the colonialists in charge of the police for inflaming the situation. The dead are now celebrated in the region as heroes.
What may now be an event to be recalled and memorialised nevertheless still has resonance in Nigeria today.
Despite seven decades, and 60 years of independence, passing since the massacre, some argue that policing retains elements from the colonial past.
Last year's wave of demonstrations against police brutality in Nigeria under the #EndSars banner culminated in the shootings at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos on 20 October, which has led to comparisons with what happened in 1949.
On both occasions peaceful demonstrators were met with brute force, though the authorities continue to deny that protesters were killed at Lekki. Amnesty International says more than 10 people died.
The protests were led by young people who successfully called for the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), which they accused of abusing their powers through arbitrary arrests, harassment and sometimes killing.
The anti-Sars movement was in many ways a manifestation of decades of mistrust between the people and the police.
A 2004 report in the Police Journal, an international academic publication, said the public image of the Nigerian police at that time had not improved from what it was during and after the colonial period, describing it as still operating "with the same arbitrariness, ruthlessness, brutality, vandalism, incivility, low accountability to the public and corruption".
'Police cater to the ruling class'
And little has changed since, according to a survey conducted in some African countries by Afrobarometer in 2016 and 2018. That showed that the police were distrusted by a majority of the citizens in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, all former British colonies.
Some people, like Okechukwu Nwanguma of Noprin, an NGO committed to police reforms in Nigeria, believes that the distrust between the people and police in most African countries is because of the way the forces were established.
"The Nigeria Police Force, for instance, was set up by the British to cater to the whims of the ruling class and that explains why despite Nigerians being in charge since 1964, policing in Nigeria has not improved," he said.
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It is a point security expert, Kemi Okenyodo, agrees with, saying that "Nigeria's political elite love what they inherited from the colonial masters and so they have maintained status quo".
"There's no difference between the politicians using the police now and how they were used during the colonial days when they protected the interests of the British monarch and everything linked to the Royal Niger Company," she said.
After decades of calls for holistic police reforms in Nigeria, a law was passed in 2020 that many hope will provide a new springboard for the police force.
Though there have been other minor reforms, this new law essentially repeals a pre-independence act, passed in 1948, that the police were operating on.
Legislators say the new law provides for an "efficient and effective police force that is based on the principles of accountability and transparency; protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms; and partnership with other security institutions".
But the 2020 act has its sceptics, including Mr Nwanguma.
He said successive governments have set up committees to look into police reforms but their recommendations have never been carried out.
"Between former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan we had three different committees - under this Buhari administration we have also had some but there has been no political will to implement far-reaching reforms," he said.
He added that the political will is lacking to implement reforms because politicians prefer the police the way it is so they can use officers for their own objectives, "one of which is rigging elections".
The police spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment but a former spokesperson who now helps run the police's public relations college agreed that there was an issue with the colonial legacy.
"Don't forget that the initial police created by the colonial masters wasn't to enforce rights, their intention wasn't to do us good, but to do us evil," Emmanuel Ojukwu told the BBC.
But he has faith that the legal reforms will transform the force.
"This [new] law, for the first time says that the basic objective of the police is to protect human rights."
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And we thought Christmas only came once a year. | By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter
The first full-length trailer for No Time To Die has been released, giving fans a flavour of what to expect from Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond.
The promo, which launched on Wednesday and can be seen below, shows Rami Malek in character as the latest villain for the first time, as well as a new female agent with a licence to kill.
No Time To Die is set to be released in April, but there have been one or two obstacles along the way - from Daniel Craig's ankle injury to the decision to change director.
Danny Boyle was originally supposed to be at the helm for Bond 25, but he exited the project last August due to "creative differences".
US director Cary Joji Fukunaga stepped in, and there was a race against the clock to keep the film on schedule for its April 2020 release date.
"It has been an incredible honour, but it's also just been really hard," Fukunaga tells BBC News. "This was a very ambitious script for the time we had.
"I got the role in the middle of doing press for Maniac [the Netflix series he directed], so I was doing interviews like this while trying to process the enormous excitement but also responsibility of taking on this project.
"And I was very aware that with Daniel's departure, I had to get a script going and production going in a very short space of time. The lack of time was a sort of impetus for the pressure. It was like a very hot flame under our ass!"
The project had the added complication of having to go back to the drawing board after Boyle's exit.
"I love Danny's films, but on this one we basically had to start from scratch," Fukunaga explains. "It was the desire of the producers that we sort of start anew and figure out a new storyline for this one."
The writing process involved bringing Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge on board to help polish the script.
5 talking points from the trailer
Fukunaga refers to a new plot, but No Time To Die also appears to continue the overarching storyline which has run through the last four films.
Spectre's ending seemed to tie that narrative up, which left many wondering whether the 25th Bond film would start afresh. But the inclusion of Waltz's Blofeld in the trailer puts paid to that idea and suggests it's a continuation - something Fukunaga appears to confirm.
"I like to think of this as picking up from all the stories, from Casino [Royale] all the way through," he says. "And those who are fans will appreciate the layers that exist there, but I also think for new audiences, people who have never seen any of the films before, younger audiences, it's strong enough that they can get involved."
As well as Maniac, Fukunaga has previously directed films including Beasts of No Nation and a 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Mia Wasikowska.
'Misogynistic dinosaur'
Perhaps the most interesting part of the trailer is Lashana Lynch's appearance as a new member of MI6.
Having a female double-O marks a slight change in direction in the franchise. No Time To Die is the first Bond film since #MeToo, but would the film series have evolved in this direction anyway?
"Yes, I think so," Fukunaga says. "Bond started evolving probably 25 years ago, when Judi Dench's M called out Pierce Brosnan's Bond for being a misogynistic dinosaur and a relic of the Cold War."
(He's quoting, almost verbatim, from one of the first scenes Dench and Brosnan shared in 1995's GoldenEye.)
"I think Lashana's role is not about being female, she's just a younger generation," Fukunaga says. "There's the whole thing going around the internet right now about 'OK Boomer', and I just think of how younger generations challenge what the previous generations legacy means.
"And I think for Lashana, she has a lot to prove, she's capable, she's physical, she's intelligent. And the world has changed, and she feels she's inheriting a world that agents like Bond had operated in. And it's like, they want to make their mark. That's how I think of it. Less so than just because she's female, we're in a world where that's not even the considerations. It's more, 'is she capable of being a double-O?'"
One person who became (temporarily) incapable of being a double-O was Daniel Craig, who injured his ankle while shooting the film. But, Fukunaga says, that wasn't as disruptive to the schedule as you might imagine.
"If you think about a film this ambitious, this long, with this many stunts, the fact that we had one sprained ankle and a concussion over that period of time was a pretty high achievement," he says.
"[Craig's ankle injury] delayed us a little bit, but he didn't miss a day of being on set after that. He was on set working out and doing PT [physical therapy] the entire time. We had to do a little juggling on schedule and scenes, but that was pretty much it."
No Time To Die isn't actually finished yet. Filming wrapped last month but the movie is now in post-production, which means Fukunaga "still hasn't had time to really process" the whole experience. "I think I'll probably have to sit down next summer and figure out what just happened," he says.
Ask the directors of Cats or Sonic The Hedgehog whether launching a trailer is a positive experience and you might find them cowering in the corner of a room from the trauma.
But Fukunaga is less anxious about the social media reaction to the Bond trailer. "We don't have any computer graphics animals in our trailer," he laughs, "so we're less worried about that."
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"We really couldn't understand why we weren't able to have our identities verified, " says Laura McCormack about the moment she and her partner, who both had the three main symptoms of coronavirus, were refused a home test kit. | By Dan WhitworthMoney Box reporter
They had logged on to the government website to request one, but were told that because their names and addresses could not be checked, they would have to go to a physical test site instead.
With no car and needing to avoid public transport because of their symptoms, it took them five days to get a test site close enough to walk to - one that was 90 minutes away.
"We started Googling and digging around," she says. "We thought it [failing to get their identities verified] might be the fact we are migrant workers."
Because Laura has been in the UK less than a year, she has not built up much of a credit history.
"In the end, it became clear that people with no credit history were having very similar problems. People who haven't taken out loans or don't have phone contracts or credit cards here in the UK," she says.
"That's what led us to believe that we actually were being excluded from the process because we don't have a credit history here in the UK."
Most adults in the UK have a significant credit file, so getting a home test kit would be no problem.
But research from 2018 suggests there may be up to 5.8 million people with little or no credit history who could have similar problems to Laura, should they need to get one.
'Reduce fraud'
The Department for Health and Social Care, which is running the test system across the UK, says it uses a credit reference agency, TransUnion, to verify people's identities to "reduce fraud and prevent multiple testing kits being ordered, diverting capacity from where it is needed most".
TransUnion told Money Box in "some cases we may not be able to verify the individual's identity - which can happen for a number of reasons". It refused to explain what those reasons are.
While Laura doesn't have much of a credit history, she is on the electoral roll and does have a bank account and utility bills in her name.
Anna Miller, from charity Doctors of the World, questioned whether identity verification for home test kits is creating the solution to a problem that doesn't exist - at the expense of people like Laura.
"The types of people affected are anybody who has little to no credit history or credit footprint," she says.
"People whose financial situations tend to be organised by other people in a family and women, like elderly people, are likely to be more disproportionally affected.
"Alongside these groups are young adults who've not had much time to build up credit histories, recently arrived migrants in the UK for the same reason and people on low incomes who might not have access to mainstream credit."
Other ways to get tested
Both the government and TransUnion were very clear that people do not have to pass a credit check to get a home test kit.
The Department for Health and Social Care also told the BBC: "Tests can also be booked by calling 119 and people can access testing and in-person testing sites, where a member of staff will confirm their identity in person."
But if an indirect consequence of not being able to verify your identity online is that people with no or limited credit histories are being affected, Laura says the system needs to change.
"The situation seems a bit crazy to me, to be honest. We are guests in the UK, we're trying very hard to keep the population safe by self-isolating and getting tested," she says.
"But not being able to verify our identity was very strange. We're both on the electoral roll, we both have bank accounts here, we're on a lease, we both have bills.
"There are many ways the government could have accessed our identity information, so the reason the government has chosen the credit path is a mystery to me."
You can hear more on BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme by listening again here.
Follow Money Box and Dan on Twitter.
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Nissan is creating up to 300 jobs at its plant in Sunderland to work on the car firm's luxury Infiniti brand. | The new recruits will work on the production of the Q30 model - the first large scale manufacturing of a new car brand in the UK for 23 years.
This will be followed by a second smaller Infiniti model, the QX30.
The company, which employs nearly 6,800 staff, said it was the "beginning of a new era". The cars will be targeted at the Chinese and North American markets.
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A memorial has been unveiled in Weymouth to remember thousands of Channel Island children evacuated from their homes amid the German occupation.
| Jersey's Lieutenant Governor, General Sir John McColl and Lady McColl joined St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft at the ceremony.
They were greeted by children dressed in clothing of the war time era.
The chairman and founder of the Jersey Evacuees Association, Jean McLaughlin, said it was very significant.
The memorial marked where they landed more than 70 years ago.
Mrs McLaughlin said it was the first time many of them had left their island homes.
She said: "It was such a memorable occasion and very close to one's heart.
"I just think of my mum and dad, the thousands that came here from all over the Channel Islands, it has been wonderful."
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An ambulance crew had their personal belongings stolen while they were responding to an emergency in Leeds. | The Yorkshire ambulance crew were treating a patient in St Luke's Green, in Beeston, at about 01:00 GMT on 28 January when the theft took place.
Thieves smashed a window, ripped out the centre console of the vehicle and made off with a number of items.
Divisional Commander John McSorley said he was "saddened and disappointed by this act of vandalism".
He said the damage to the ambulance also left it out of service while repairs were carried out.
West Yorkshire Police is appealing for anyone with information to contact them.
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The jury in the trial of a man who was accused of murder, after a body was found on an industrial estate, has been discharged for legal reasons. | Tomas Lazdauskas, 24, of Milner Road, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, was on trial at Cambridge Crown Court accused of the murder of Mindaugas Arlauskas, 28.
Mr Arlauskas's body was found on Sandall Road in Wisbech on 9 May.
The jury was discharged on Thursday. A retrial will begin at Peterborough Crown Court on Monday.
Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]
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Over the past week, BBC Wales has asked readers to submit their questions about the coronavirus pandemic in Wales. | By Carys BetteleyBBC News
We asked if there was anything you wanted to know and whether the rules are confusing you - and pledged to try and answer.
Here's what you wanted to know.
"The death rate states that it includes all people that test positive in the last month but how many have actually died directly from Covid?"
People die with coronavirus, not of coronavirus - just as people die with cancer, not of cancer.
That is because the actual cause of death is the effect the virus - or cancer - has on the body.
For example, Covid-19 can cause a huge degree of inflammation which becomes multi-organ failure and this is the cause of death.
Similarly some cancers can, for example, damage blood vessels which causes bleeding in the brain - a stroke - which can be fatal.
Therefore the damage to the body which causes death has been caused by coronavirus, but coronavirus is not the direct cause of death - the cause of death in this example would be organ failure.
So the deaths are with, not of, coronavirus.
In recording deaths with Covid-19, medical professionals will consider: "Would this person be alive today if they had not caught coronavirus?"
It has been estimated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that 88.9% of deaths in Wales where doctors have mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, that it was the underlying cause of death.
So in October, 236 deaths were due to Covid-19. But there were another 49 when Covid-19 was involved and mentioned on the death certificate, and a factor in the death.
In Wales, Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death in 2,629 of deaths registered up to 7 November.
It is important to note the figures released daily by Public Health Wales or weekly by the ONS do not include all people who have tested positive in 28 days.
Rather, they include people who have had confirmed or suspected coronavirus within the past 28 days which is believed to have been a factor in their death.
"Is there any reason I should catch Covid if my extended household all work from home, rarely go out, are careful and play by all the rules?"
Taking safety measures such as working from home, staying home as much as possible and respecting the rules will put you in the best position to avoid the virus.
However, anyone can catch coronavirus and anyone can pass it on.
It only takes one interaction with someone who may not even realise they are infected to potentially catch coronavirus.
While coronavirus is mostly transmitted when people cough, sneeze or talk, there are also some studies showing it can be transmitted by touching an infected surface - such as on groceries or packages delivered to your home.
These studies have mostly been done in lab conditions and some experts have thrown doubt on the actual threat posed by surface transmission in real life.
Either way - to best protect yourself from catching coronavirus from surfaces, regularly wash your hands for 20 seconds.
"If there is a wide uptake of vaccination would all of the basic measures such as masks and social distancing still apply?"
If and when a vaccine (or more than one vaccine) is approved for use in the UK and begins to be rolled out, safety measures such as those you've listed will still need to be in place for some time.
That's because it will take months to vaccinate everyone who wishes to be vaccinated.
As you've correctly implied, there are still questions over whether uptake of the vaccine will be high due to misinformation and myths on social media, and there may be some people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.
We have fact checked some of the most widely shared false claims.
Even if the uptake is good, we are likely to be well into 2021 before all the relevant groups have been offered the vaccination - which will probably begin with front-line NHS staff and care staff, followed by the elderly and others most vulnerable to the virus.
So we'll need to continue taking safety measures for the time being.
It is early days, but it's likely the Welsh Government will continue to look at infection rates the way they have been doing since the beginning of the pandemic, and allow these measures to be dropped when scientific advisers believe it is safe to do so.
"Why has the country been 'shut down' when out of a population of more than three million, about 3,000 people have died?"
It has been recognised throughout the pandemic that Welsh people have made sacrifices and continue to make sacrifices - and Mark Drakeford has repeated during news briefings that every death is a tragedy.
In making decisions over lockdown measures, the Welsh Government looks at several factors including the R number - the average number of people a sick person could pass the virus on to.
The aim of lockdowns is to reduce the R number below one, which means case numbers would begin to fall - therefore fewer people are getting ill, leading to fewer hospital admissions so the NHS does not become overwhelmed, and fewer deaths.
Lockdown restrictions since March, along with social distancing and other safety measures, have served to shrink the R number.
However, as the country has moved out of lockdowns, the R number has risen again.
In September, a "reasonable worst case scenario" for this winter was published by Swansea University experts, mentioning 636,000 infections, leading to 18,200 hospital admissions - peaking in January - and potentially 6,300 deaths.
If the NHS becomes overwhelmed, this does not just affect Covid patients but it restricts the organisation in how well other services such as cancer referrals and A&E can operate.
"What will be the long-term health risks based on the delays to planned operations and cancer treatments?"
It is expected to take years before NHS waiting times are back to pre-coronavirus levels in Wales, according to the organisation's boss.
The number of people waiting more than 36 weeks for planned hospital treatments is six times higher than at the start of 2020.
Waiting list figures, published in November for the first time since March, showed nearly 169,000 people waiting.
The number has grown after most non-urgent treatment was postponed to prepare the NHS for the first coronavirus wave.
Since then, the service has been trying to restart non-emergency treatments and aims to keep them going as much as possible during the second wave.
The fear, of course, is that people who have missed out on early intervention as a result will have missed an opportunity for early treatment - such as in the case of Simon Green whose scan was delayed and brain tumour subsequently found to be inoperable.
As a result of such delays, Prof Tom Crosby of the Wales Cancer Network said as many as 2,000 people could die.
The Welsh Government said work was under way to address the issue with health boards.
But there are fears had such measures not been taken to reduce pressures on the NHS, the organisation could have been overwhelmed - which would also result in deaths.
"Not acting would have meant that not only would the health service have been overwhelmed with very poor care of Covid and non-Covid patients, but it also would have been disastrous for our staff," Vaughan Gething said.
"Why do we use anti-bacterial hand sanitisers when Covid-19 is a virus?"
Bacterial infections and viruses are different and, for example, antibiotics only work on bacterial infections and not viruses.
However, anti-bacterial hand sanitisers or cleaning products can also be effective on some viruses if the alcohol concentration is high enough.
Viruses similar to the structure of coronavirus are sensitive to alcohol and detergents, which can help break down their oily, fatty shells.
Hand washing with soap is still the best cleaning practice, according to the NHS.
"I would like to know if there is any evidence to demonstrate where most transmissions are occurring, eg between houses, shops, pubs, school?"
This data is not routinely released, and there could be data protection issues if it were. But local authorities and the Welsh Government have occasionally referenced why lockdown measures have needed to be tightened in certain areas.
For example, schools in Cardigan have closed for two weeks after a spike in cases in the area, with Ceredigion council leader Ellen ap Gwynn blaming "super-spreader events" such as "parties" and "pub crawls".
When parts of the south Wales valleys were placed under stricter lockdown measures, transmissions were believed to have been occurring due to people going into each others' homes and not adhering to social distancing.
And measures have been taken in hospitals and care homes when there is evidence of transmission there.
So while this data is not routinely made available to the public, when it leads to specific decisions on restrictions, an explanation is usually given.
"Has or did the Welsh firebreak have any effect in bringing down cases in Wales?"
While it takes a few weeks or even longer to fully understand the impact any change in restrictions has made, there are promising early signs the firebreak has helped, the Welsh Government says.
The chief medical officer's analysis said the evidence was now "good enough" that it did "succeed".
Mark Drakeford said the amount of people with coronavirus in hospital was "stabilising".
"What we need to see is incidence in the community falling and that translating into falling numbers of people in hospital or needing critical care," he added.
"We're seeing the first signs of the growth of people in hospital beds reducing and bed numbers stabilising.
"What we have to do is build on that and make sure we don't fritter all that away by going back to the behaving in ways that will drive those numbers back up again."
Plaid Cymru said the Welsh Government should be taking steps to ensure there was no need for another national lockdown.
"With the end of the lockdown in England, can I travel to England?"
Yes - to some areas.
Travel in and out of Wales from England was previously banned unless you had a valid and essential reason, but Welsh Government rules updated on 3 December have changed this.
From 18:00 GMT on Friday, travel is only banned between Wales and tier 3 areas of England and tier 3 and 4 areas of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
This means you are now able to travel to and from tier 1 and 2 areas - replacing the previous blanket travel ban - although the government strongly advises against travelling to those areas at all.
Here's how to find out which tier an area of England is in.
Between 23 and 27 December, you can travel anywhere in the UK to form your Christmas bubble.
"Many people suffered last Christmas with Covid symptoms. Is it possible we have had it?"
There were calls earlier this year for a spike in excess deaths in January and February in Ceredigion to be investigated.
In the first 17 weeks of the year 342 deaths were registered in Ceredigion, according to figures obtained by Newyddion S4C - 22% more than the five-year average.
MP Ben Lake wanted to know if Covid-19 was present before it was realised.
Cardiff University's Rhian Daniel said this was not "highly likely" and was likely due to a similar infection.
However, due to antibodies potentially fading to undetectable levels a few months after infection, taking an antibody test now probably wouldn't identify whether that virus you had last winter really was Covid-19 or another virus causing similar symptoms.
Scientists and doctors in some European countries have claimed to have found evidence of coronavirus circulating earlier than previously thought.
And with evidence of coronavirus arriving in the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, we may never know exactly when the UK saw its patient zero.
"Why do some people get mild symptoms and others are struggling months later?"
Long Covid has now been recognised as a medical condition, and healthcare workers are receiving guidance on it.
There is no medical definition or list of symptoms shared by all patients - two people with long Covid can have very different experiences.
However, the most common feature is crippling fatigue.
Others symptoms include: breathlessness, a cough that won't go away, joint pain, muscle aches, hearing and eyesight problems, headaches, loss of smell and taste as well as damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys and gut.
Mental health problems have been reported including depression, anxiety and struggling to think clearly.
It can utterly destroy people's quality of life, and it is not necessarily people who were severely ill in hospital who are struck by it.
Even people with relatively mild infections can be left with lasting and severe health problems.
Read more on Long Covid here.
"Why is it called Covid 19? Is there an 18 or a 20?"
Covid-19 simply references the year the virus was first identified in Wuhan - 2019.
Official names were announced for the virus responsible for Covid-19 - previously known as "2019 novel coronavirus".
The virus is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the illness it causes is called coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Referencing the word SARS has been avoided by the World Health Organisation due to its potential for spreading fear, especially in Asia which was worst affected by the SARS outbreak in 2003.
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Photos of Miss South Africa wearing gloves while visiting black children at an orphanage in Soweto sparked a online outcry - but the orphanage staff say any insinuation that Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters is racist is "ridiculous". | By Megha MohanBBC Trending
"Of course it wasn't because she didn't want to touch black children," says Carol Dyantyi, a spokesperson for the Orlando West Community Centre Ikageng.
Nel-Peters was volunteering to feed orphans at the centre, and the gloves were a health and safety measure.
"We told her, and all other volunteers, to wear them while they were handling food around the children," Dyantyi tells BBC Trending. "It was purely to protect the children from the risk of contaminated food. This social media reaction is ridiculous."
Thousands of Twitter users criticised Nel-Peters after photos of her at a soup drive on Wednesday began to circulate on social media.
Many accused the beauty queen of wearing the latex gloves "because she didn't want to touch black children" and shared images of her hugging dogs and white children with bare hands.
In a video posted to her Twitter account, Nel-Peters said that she wore the gloves for sanitary reasons and denied that were any racial undertones to her actions.
"All the volunteers on site wore gloves today because we honestly thought that it's the right thing to do while working with food and while handing out food to young kids," Nel-Peters said. She also apologised to those who were offended.
Claudia Henkel, a spokesperson for the beauty queen, also sent images to BBC Trending of Nel-Peters gloveless and playing with the children after the food had been served.
BBC Trending on Facebook
However, not everyone was satisfied with her response. The hashtag #MissSAChallenge began to trend on Twitter on Thursday, as South Africans poked fun of the "hygiene" reason cited for the gloves.
More than 18,000 tweets used the hashtag, and some users posted pictures of themselves doing mundane tasks whilst unnecessarily wearing gloves.
Not all of the responses were critical and others defended Miss South Africa.
Henkel tells Trending that whilst the social media backlash had "saddened" Nel-Peters, she is adamant about doing more soup drives in the near future.
"And if she is asked to wear gloves for the safety of the children, then she will again," Henkel adds.
Blog by Megha Mohan
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
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A woman has been raped in a churchyard in Slough. | The victim, who is in her 30s, was attacked in the grounds of St Mary's Church, in Church Street, Upton, at about 19:45 GMT on Wednesday.
Thames Valley Police said the attacker was "dark skinned with a scar on his face" and believed to be between 40 and 45 years old.
The force has appealed for witnesses to the attack to come forward.
It added the offender was wearing a grey hat, white shoes and was of stocky, muscular build with dark eyes.
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As horrifying war reports are beamed out of Syria, a tiny radio station sends broadcasts in the other direction from Istanbul. Made up of Syrian exiles, the team gathers news from citizen journalists on the ground and has branched out into dramas and comedy shows. But they say the most important thing they provide is hope. | By Emma Jane KirbyBBC News, Istanbul
The studio technician patches through the first call of the morning phone-in programme.
"Hello there!" says Sama the cheerful presenter, nodding through the studio window at the engineer on the other side of the glass.
There's a long silence followed by a crackle.
"Hello? She repeats "Hello? What's your point about forgiveness?"
It might be any old radio show in any old country but this is Radio Alwan - an independent Syrian news station which broadcasts out of Istanbul and their calls are coming in from inside the war-torn country. Forgiveness takes on a whole new meaning here. No-one's calling the programme to chat about pardoning a cheating partner or absolving a friend who's stood them up.
The crackle splits and splinters into a male voice. It's a paramedic from Idlib province, south-west of Aleppo. He wants to share a comment a colleague has just posted on Facebook straight after witnessing the massacre of 27 people.
"The only way forward for Syria's future is to forgive and to be forgiven," he says.
In the meeting room after her show is off air, Sama tugs at her hair, buzzing with the emotions that have come down the phone lines into the studio.
"Did you hear the audience?" she asks me. "I mean they all want to forgive - it's just stunning!" She shakes her head in disbelief. "You know, I would have a problem forgiving you if you slapped me or if you took my cup of tea - yet these people inside Syria who suffered bombings and missiles and death - they say we must forgive. The Syrian people are really amazing."
It's certainly humbling. Like all of Radio Alwan's staff, Sama is an exiled Syrian and she still has family and friends stuck in besieged areas.
"Sometimes I can hear the bombing when the listener is talking to me," she tells me. "And sometimes when I hear what they tell me, I just want to die - I want to cry or I want to scream. But this is my job and I have to continue."
Find out more
Listen to Emma Jane Kirby's report about Radio Alwan on the PM programme, on BBC Radio 4
The incessant bloodshed has made continuing extremely difficult for Radio Alwan's news operations, especially in Eastern Aleppo, which was effectively recaptured by government troops last week, not long after my visit to Radio Alwan. Early this year, their local studio in Aleppo was smashed by masked men and their staff attacked. All their equipment was destroyed.
Sami, the station's head of special projects and human resources, sighs.
"It was a difficult decision to take," he admits "But we had to think of the safety of our staff and we closed the office. Now we just have one correspondent on the outskirts of Aleppo and we just pray he is OK."
Sami explains that the station is continuing with a network of civilian journalists who are not professionally trained but whom he says are "incredibly brave" as they chase up news, despite horrific dangers and terrible personal circumstances. He invites his young colleague Dima in from the newsroom to explain how their newsgathering operation works.
"Our sources in eastern Aleppo are two girls," she tells me. "And right now they are stuck - they are trapped in the fighting - and they run from one neighbourhood to another… they have to walk many miles on foot and they are in the path of the war planes and missiles."
She tells me that one of the women is a teacher and that both women are now extremely frightened because they have often sent video footage and worry they will be recognised, tracked down and punished.
Sami has already told me that it is Radio Alwan's priority to call all of its journalists every single day to check on their safety and their psychological health. He tries hard to "lift them up". But of course, it's not always easy getting hold of someone in eastern Aleppo.
Dima puts her hands to her mouth. "Sometimes we miss them for hours and we call and call… we say, 'Where are you? Please, where are you?'... but there is nothing."
Dima and Sami have reason to be worried about losing contact with their reporters. Last month, their main source in eastern Aleppo, a married man who had recently become a father, was on his way to check the details of a story for Radio Alwan's newsdesk, when his car was hit by a missile strike. As she talks, Dima breaks down.
"His boy was just two months," she cries. "It's hard, but it's real life and every day we deal with sadness."
Sami admits the war has taken its toll too on his Istanbul team who are often racked with guilt that they managed to escape the war. He tells me an evening out can often turn sour for him when he remembers his family and colleagues struggling back home. Ironically he says, it's often those trapped in besieged areas who give Radio Alwan hope.
Mid-morning presenter Sama sighs.
"It's so hard," she says. "Because honestly, right now, I don't believe in hope. I don't feel any hope. But I can't say that in the studio when I am on air. I have to keep talking about hope. The audience tell us that's what they need - hope."
Radio Alwan sees itself very much as a public service and Sami explains that's why the station has put a lot of resources recently into creating radio dramas, comedy shows and magazine programmes for its listeners.
"The radio is for the people," he insists, "Not for the presenter, the producer or the technician. And the people don't just need to hear bad news, they need diversion too."
He talks me through the new schedule.
Coming up is a practical programme aimed at Syrians who have fled to refugee camps. An expert is on hand to explain to the refugees how to make warmer shelters for the winter months using mud found on site. Another expert will advise on making food and clothing go further.
Sami's very proud of the station's new women's programme that is presented by a woman from Idlib and has attracted a lot of male listeners too. It's broadcast and welcomed in areas where extremist ideology has taken hold, he points out. I tell him about BBC Radio 4's long running programme, Woman's Hour, and he chuckles that it's nice to know Radio Alwan is on the right path. The name of their programme he tells me is Hi Grandma. I make a mental note never to tell Jenni Murray.
How Radio Alwan began
In the small gallery, we listen to an excerpt from a twice-weekly comedy sketch, Where Are You My Dear? which features two Syrian shopkeeper characters and a cleaner who banter in the street together. Although I can't understand the Arabic, I find I'm smiling at the voices. Sami looks delighted.
"It's really very clever writing," he grins. "I laugh out loud when I listen. And it is written and produced in Idlib."
Twenty-three-year-old Maram comes to join us wearing dark jeans and a trendy bright green T-shirt. She's the new young face (or rather young voice) behind Radio Alwan's youth strand and she regularly hosts phone-ins on subjects like football kit and football supporters. It gives, she explains, a young generation who have grown up under a backdrop and soundscape of war, something else to focus on.
"I just try to put a smile on their face," she shrugs. "You know, make them think of something normal, something that isn't bombs."
Radio Alwan is currently planning a new drama about the White Helmets, Syria's volunteer civil defence force, but I want to know what's happening in their established soap opera, Sad Northern Nights. It tells the story of widowed Thoraya whose husband has been killed by Assad's forces, her teenage son Karam who has been brainwashed by Daesh and Sariah, a member of the civil defence force who is trying to help them both. It is low-budget and many of the parts are played by members of the newsroom yet the drama is spellbinding.
"It's a true story in a way, even if the actual characters don't exist," Sami reminds me. "We are really telling the same stories we tell in the news - but through the drama we try to tell the story of the Syrian people in a different way, perhaps a less brutal way."
And the Syrian audience - who love the drama - were treated at the end of the last series to a truly happy ending. Karam was rescued from Daesh and went back to school, Sariah wooed and then married Thoraya and they even had a baby together. "So, that's it?" I ask Sami. "They all lived happily ever after?"
Sami smiles sadly. "We want to make the drama realistic," he says. "So I think we now have to wait a bit to see what will happen in Syria before we start making series three. You just never know what will happen in Syria… if or when an attack will come."
Later that day, waiting for my plane at the airport, I receive an email from Sami, in which he has attached the last minute of Sad Northern Nights series two for me to enjoy. I hear Sariah chatting cheerfully with his wife about the baby before he picks up his bag and heads out of the door for a meeting with the civil defence force. His footsteps trail off into the night…
And I think of Sami and Dima and Sama back at Radio Alwan nervously calling and calling their correspondents on the ground back home in Syria, willing them to pick up the phone, willing them to return home safely, willing them a happy ending to this war from hell.
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Vietnam's Mount Fansipan, the highest mountain on the Indochinese Peninsula, is taller than previously thought. The peak in the Lao Cai province of Vietnam's mountainous north was remeasured earlier this year, and officially stands 3,147.3 metres (10,325.7 ft) above sea level - 4.3 metres (14 ft) higher than its last official reckoning , the 24h.com.vn news site reports. | By News from Elsewhere......as found by BBC Monitoring
Phan Duc Hieu, director of the Department of Survey, Mapping and Geographic Information told reporters that the mountain was last surveyed in 1909 by the then French colonial authorities, using the barometric method of placing atmospheric pressure gauges at the peak and base of the mountain to calculate its height.
But Mr Hieu's team have used the Global Navigation Satellite System, combined with altitude data from satellite positioning stations around Asia, to provide what they are sure is an accurate reading.
"We are submitting documents to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for consideration, and proposing corrections to textbooks and other material in line with the new data," he told the Voice of Vietnam national broadcaster.
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Mr Hieu proposes two theories as to why the mountain is considerably higher than earlier thought, one being a simple matter of the French surveyors' obsolete technology.
But the other suggests that the Hoang Lien Son Mountain Range, which includes Fansipan, has been ascending heavenwards at a rate of 4.3 cm (1.6 inches) a year.
'Roof of Indochina'
The range lies to the west of the Red River Fault, where the Yangtze Tectonic Plate collides with the Sagaing Fault in Burma and slowly pushes the mountains higher.
Geologist Cao Dinh Trieu says "high tectonic activity in the range in recent years is entirely consistent with the evaluation of scientists", and expects the "Roof of Indochina" as it is known to continue to rise, 24h.co.vn reports.
Meanwhile, Mr Hieu says his department will "continue to monitor Fansipan to determine the specific cause".
The mountain is in a heavily-wooded, long-inaccessible part of the country, and was first mapped in 1905 as part of a French project to demarcate the border with China.
More recently Vietnam has developed the tourism infrastructure of the Hoang Lien National Park, including a spectacular 15-minute cable car ride that features in the Guinness World Records - and may have just grown a little longer.
Reporting by Martin Morgan
Next story: Scientists 'speechless' at Arctic fox's epic trek
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.
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The passing of Jayaram Jayalalitha, one of India's most flamboyant and controversial politicians, leaves a void that will be felt for a long time in both her home state, Tamil Nadu, and in the Indian political scene. | By Sudha G Tilak Delhi
The leader of Tamil Nadu state and former actress who played a powerful goddess on screen was all too human and yet her followers deified her as a divine being.
She inspired a cult following, and adoring followers often called her "Adi parashakti" - which means the ultimate powerful goddess in Tamil.
She was one of India's most charismatic and enigmatic personalities, single-handedly holding her own in the masculine world of Tamil politics and effectively breaking a more than 30-year-old culture of male dominance.
Successful actress
While there have been several female leaders across Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Jayalalitha came from a different background.
Other female premiers, like Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Sheikh Hasina and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, all came from political families.
Jayalalitha, on the other hand, came from a middle-class family, where her mother was a small-time actress.
On various occasions she described herself as a prim, convent-bred girl who had dreamt of a world of academic and legal studies with an interest in English theatre.
She topped her state in her school-leaving exams and was awarded a scholarship to college studies. However, to tide over her family's financial crisis, she began to act instead.
Actor and late Tamil Nadu chief minister MG Ramachandran was Jayalalitha's mentor, and inducted her into the movies.
She acted in more than 140 films from the 1960s. She was a successful actress of her time, paired with the top heroes of all south Indian languages.
Challenging norms
Her ability to speak English, considered a social marker, and ability to sing marked her skills in the movie business.
And, even in her acting career, Jayalalitha was not afraid to challenge established norms.
A common trope in films of the time was that of the "spoilt shrew tamed by the hero". But Jayalalitha soon tired of that stereotype - and eventually started playing independent women who resisted traditional roles for women.
Fame and success came at a cost, though - there was intense tabloid interest in her private life, while her heartbreaks were fodder for local Tamil magazines.
She came under similar scrutiny when she became a politician.
After a lull in her career she was inducted into the regional AIADMK party as its propaganda secretary. Her maiden public address in 1982 on the power of women struck a chord with many.
Earning enemies
Jayalalitha's estrangement with her brother and family, and the fact that a companion, the wife of a small time video shop businessman, was arrested for alleged involvement in corruption scandals, added more fodder to the media and rivals hungry for her downfall.
Her loneliness and lack of family were often held up as a personality flaws by her rivals.
Critics also accused her of corruption, suppressing political rivals ruthlessly, and establishing a corrupt inner circle.
The midnight arrest of her political rivals, and her withdrawal of support to the ruling federal BJP government led by Prime Minister Vajpayee in 1999, earned her enemies among political parties across India, including her own party leaders, and the media.
Jayalalitha even earned the nickname "Imelda Marcos of India" thanks to her cult of personality and the excesses she exhibited in her first term of office as chief minister of Tamil Nadu in the 1990s.
And eyebrows were raised when she arranged a controversial wedding for her foster son, featuring 10 dining halls and extravagant decorations, in 1995 while she was chief minister. She disowned her foster son a year later.
Her supporters defended her from corruption allegations, saying she was no more corrupt than the male politicians of her time and was only playing a game they were all too familiar with.
Outspoken
While her rivals showcased their party's ideologies and fostered their dynastic brand of politics, Jayalalitha's lone persona as a single woman was held up for ridicule.
Jayalalitha was outspoken, saying she was proud to be a woman, an upper-caste Brahmin and a Hindu - in a state where politicians espoused the rationalistic credo of their parties and decried Brahminism and religion.
But the last decade of her tenure as chief minister was marked by efforts to reshape her image into that of a benign and benevolent mother figure.
Gone were the personal excesses of silks and diamonds.
They were replaced with a sober dress code: given to belief in astrology too she began to wear dark colours, especially plain green and blue and maroon.
Uncertain future
She successfully built up a near-indelible personality cult through welfare schemes - and the inexpensive food and water products, branded "Amma" after her nickname, mother, that were provided to the poor.
Subsidies made up more than a third of Tamil Nadu's revenue spending, and the policies endeared her to women and children.
Tamil Nadu also became the first state in India to allow government hospitals to perform medical procedures on transgender people to help them fight infections.
Jayaalalitha spent a lot of time in court, facing multiple corruption allegations.
But, following each arrest, she eventually emerged unscathed.
Jayalalitha's passing leaves her party, one of the oldest regional parties in India, in a shambles.
But she will also be remembered as a woman who stood up and created her own narrative - both in the film world, and in politics.
Sudha G Tilak is an independent Delhi-based journalist
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One man has died and three others have been injured in a multi-vehicle crash on the A303 in Somerset. | The accident involved four vehicles on the Illminster bypass between Ilminster and South Petherton at 11:15 BST.
Avon and Somerset police said the crash involved a lorry which collided with a Corsa and then two other cars.
Police have confirmed the driver of the Corsa died. The driver of the lorry has been arrested in connection with the accident.
The road reopened at 18:00 BST.
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Chief Justice Roberts, Vice-President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice-President Pence. My distinguished guests, my fellow Americans. | This is America's day. This is democracy's day. A day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve. Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge. Today we celebrate the triumph not of a candidate but of a cause, a cause of democracy. The people - the will of the people - has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded.
We've learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile and, at this hour my friends, democracy has prevailed. So now on this hallowed ground where just a few days ago violence sought to shake the Capitol's very foundations, we come together as one nation under God - indivisible - to carry out the peaceful transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.
As we look ahead in our uniquely American way, restless, bold, optimistic, and set our sights on a nation we know we can be and must be, I thank my predecessors of both parties for their presence here. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. And I know the resilience of our Constitution and the strength, the strength of our nation, as does President Carter, who I spoke with last night who cannot be with us today, but who we salute for his lifetime of service.
I've just taken a sacred oath each of those patriots have taken. The oath first sworn by George Washington. But the American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us. On we the people who seek a more perfect union. This is a great nation, we are good people. And over the centuries through storm and strife in peace and in war we've come so far. But we still have far to go.
We'll press forward with speed and urgency for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibility. Much to do, much to heal, much to restore, much to build and much to gain. Few people in our nation's history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we're in now. A once in a century virus that silently stalks the country has taken as many lives in one year as in all of World War Two.
Millions of jobs have been lost. Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed. A cry for racial justice, some 400 years in the making, moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer. A cry for survival comes from the planet itself, a cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear now. The rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront and we will defeat.
To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy - unity. Unity. In another January on New Year's Day in 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When he put pen to paper the president said, and I quote, 'if my name ever goes down in history, it'll be for this act, and my whole soul is in it'.
My whole soul is in it today, on this January day. My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause. Uniting to fight the foes we face - anger, resentment and hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, and hopelessness.
With unity we can do great things, important things. We can right wrongs, we can put people to work in good jobs, we can teach our children in safe schools. We can overcome the deadly virus, we can rebuild work, we can rebuild the middle class and make work secure, we can secure racial justice and we can make America once again the leading force for good in the world.
I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal, that we are all created equal, and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism and fear have torn us apart. The battle is perennial and victory is never secure.
Through civil war, the Great Depression, World War, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifice, and setback, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of our moments enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward and we can do that now. History, faith and reason show the way. The way of unity.
We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbours. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury, no progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge. And unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America.
If we do that, I guarantee we will not failed. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we've acted together. And so today at this time in this place, let's start afresh, all of us. Let's begin to listen to one another again, hear one another, see one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war and we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.
My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. We have to be better than this and I believe America is so much better than this. Just look around. Here we stand in the shadow of the Capitol dome. As mentioned earlier, completed in the shadow of the Civil War. When the union itself was literally hanging in the balance. We endure, we prevail. Here we stand, looking out on the great Mall, where Dr King spoke of his dream.
Here we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. And today we mark the swearing in of the first woman elected to national office, Vice President Kamala Harris. Don't tell me things can't change. Here we stand where heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion rest in eternal peace.
And here we stand just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen, it will never happen, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not ever. To all those who supported our campaign, I'm humbled by the faith you placed in us. To all those who did not support us, let me say this. Hear us out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.
If you still disagree, so be it. That's democracy. That's America. The right to dissent peacefully. And the guardrail of our democracy is perhaps our nation's greatest strength. If you hear me clearly, disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you. I will be a President for all Americans, all Americans. And I promise you I will fight for those who did not support me as for those who did.
Many centuries ago, St Augustine - the saint of my church - wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love. Defined by the common objects of their love. What are the common objects we as Americans love, that define us as Americans? I think we know. Opportunity, security, liberty, dignity, respect, honour, and yes, the truth.
Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens as Americans and especially as leaders. Leaders who are pledged to honour our Constitution to protect our nation. To defend the truth and defeat the lies.
Look, I understand that many of my fellow Americans view the future with fear and trepidation. I understand they worry about their jobs. I understand like their dad they lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling thinking: 'Can I keep my healthcare? Can I pay my mortgage?' Thinking about their families, about what comes next. I promise you, I get it. But the answer's not to turn inward. To retreat into competing factions. Distrusting those who don't look like you, or worship the way you do, who don't get their news from the same source as you do.
We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts, if we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we're willing to stand in the other person's shoes, as my mom would say. Just for a moment, stand in their shoes.
Because here's the thing about life. There's no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days you need a hand. There are other days when we're called to lend a hand. That's how it has to be, that's what we do for one another. And if we are that way our country will be stronger, more prosperous, more ready for the future. And we can still disagree.
My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us we're going to need each other. We need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter. We're entering what may be the darkest and deadliest period of the virus. We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise this, as the Bible says, 'Weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning'. We will get through this together. Together.
Look folks, all my colleagues I serve with in the House and the Senate up here, we all understand the world is watching. Watching all of us today. So here's my message to those beyond our borders. America has been tested and we've come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances, and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's challenges. And we'll lead not merely by the example of our power but the power of our example.
Fellow Americans, moms, dads, sons, daughters, friends, neighbours and co-workers. We will honour them by becoming the people and the nation we can and should be. So I ask you let's say a silent prayer for those who lost their lives, those left behind and for our country. Amen.
Folks, it's a time of testing. We face an attack on our democracy, and on truth, a raging virus, a stinging inequity, systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America's role in the world. Any one of these would be enough to challenge us in profound ways. But the fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with one of the greatest responsibilities we've had. Now we're going to be tested. Are we going to step up?
It's time for boldness for there is so much to do. And this is certain, I promise you. We will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era. We will rise to the occasion. Will we master this rare and difficult hour? Will we meet our obligations and pass along a new and better world to our children? I believe we must and I'm sure you do as well. I believe we will, and when we do, we'll write the next great chapter in the history of the United States of America. The American story.
A story that might sound like a song that means a lot to me, it's called American Anthem. And there's one verse that stands out at least for me and it goes like this:
'The work and prayers of centuries have brought us to this day, which shall be our legacy, what will our children say?
Let me know in my heart when my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you.'
Let us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation. If we do this, then when our days are through, our children and our children's children will say of us: 'They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.'
My fellow Americans I close the day where I began, with a sacred oath. Before God and all of you, I give you my word. I will always level with you. I will defend the Constitution, I'll defend our democracy.
I'll defend America and I will give all - all of you - keep everything I do in your service. Thinking not of power but of possibilities. Not of personal interest but of public good.
And together we will write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity not division, of light not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us. The story that inspires us. And the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch but thrive.
That America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forbearers, one another, and generations to follow.
So with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasks of our time. Sustained by faith, driven by conviction and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and God protect our troops.
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Last year, the level and ferocity of cyber-attacks on the internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: to let the internet wither on the vine and start up a new more robust one instead. | By Prof Alan WoodwardDepartment of Computing, University of Surrey
On being asked if we should start again, many - maybe most - immediately argue that the internet is such an integral part of our social and economic fabric that even considering a change in its fundamental structure is inconceivable and rather frivolous.
I was one of those. However, recently the evidence suggests that our efforts to secure the internet are becoming less and less effective, and so the idea of a radical alternative suddenly starts to look less laughable.
One example of struggling security comes from Neira Jones, head of payment security at Barclaycard. She told me that in the UK alone, identity fraud costs more than £2.7bn every year and affects over 1.8 million people.
We also increasingly have other forms of cyber-attacks from political activists (so called 'hacktivists'), and cyber-espionage and warfare, where the internet has become another stage for global conflict between nations.
We need to understand the root of the problem.
In essence, the internet was never intended to be a secure network. The concept was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) as a means of allowing a distributed computer system to survive a nuclear attack on the US.
Those who designed the Internet Protocol (IP) did not expect that someone might try to intercept or manipulate information sent across it.
As we expanded our use of the internet from large, centralised computers to personal computers and mobile devices, its underlying technology stayed the same.
The internet is no longer a single entity but a collection of 'things' unified by only one item - IP - which is now so pervasive that it is used to connect devices as wide-ranging as cars and medical devices.
Many technologies were then built upon this foundation. The best known was HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) which is what allows web pages such as this to be displayed in the way you view it now.
And, yes, many of these technologies included the ability to secure the data that is being transmitted over the internet. All will have used one of these 'secure' technologies, most usually when buying something over the internet.
Technology to serve
But, stop and ask yourself this, if it is 'secure', why are there so many successful attacks?
Some argue that humans are the weak link and hence changing the internet's underlying technology would not really solve the problem. I take issue with that. Technology serves people not vice versa.
It is unreasonable to expect users in general to understand complex technologies to the degree necessary to ensure they operate securely over the internet.
It's analogous to a house. By default a house should be built to allow it to be occupied safely.
If you chose to start knocking down walls then it is your fault if the house collapses. But if the foundations of any structure are unsound, no matter how strong or unmodified the building on top, there is always a significant risk of safety being undermined through no fault of yours.
Of course, some argue that you can simply underpin structures with shaky foundations. There are other, more secure technologies that could be substituted for the current 'IP'.
This June sees the launch of what many consider to be the next generation of IP (known as IPv6 and IPSec) which is capable of securing all data transmitted over the internet.
However, availability of a better technology does not automatically lead to its adoption. Secure alternatives to IP have existed for a long time and yet none have been adopted widely.
In fact, the launch in June is more of a relaunch intended to reinvigorate interest in the next generation of IP which was developed in 1998.
I have my doubts as to its success as the internet has a momentum of its own: without someone mandating its use, or more specifically how it should be used, it is unlikely that it will be deployed to make up for the current shortcomings.
Security afterthought
Ever since the internet first changed from an academics' toy to become a commercial tool in the 1990s, security has always been an afterthought.
Only in an environment where the providers of the underlying networks insist upon the use of a single, secure technology, can one have a set of firm foundations.
Sadly, a key characteristic of our current internet is that it is a lawless, unregulated environment. Even governmental attempts at governance have failed as the internet is global and no truly global governance body exists.
Neira Jones summed it up nicely when she said to me that while regulations are trying to address the security void, success will depend on collective responsibility and accountability as well as extensive awareness and education at all levels.
While not a popular view, I think that the current internet can only survive if adequate global governance is applied and that single, secure technology is mandated. This is obviously fraught with the much rehashed arguments about control of the internet, free speech, and so on.
Then there is the Herculean task of achieving international agreement and a recognised and empowered governance body.
However, this exists for other shared infrastructures, from aviation to telephony, so it is not impossible.
I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
We can have areas of the internet that are governed by a global body and run on technologies which are inherently secure, and we can have areas which are known to be uncontrolled.
They can coexist using the same physical networks, personal computers and user interface to access both but they would be clearly segregated such that a user would have to make a clear choice to leave the default safe zone and enter what has been described as "the seediest place on the planet".
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Firefighters spent the night dealing with a blaze in the historic centre of a market town in Suffolk. | Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service was called to shops in Chediston Street, near the market place in Halesworth, at about 18:15 BST.
About 10 crews tackled the fire which had spread to two neighbouring buildings, causing a roof to collapse.
It was extinguished at about 02:00 on Tuesday and an investigation will begin later.
A fire service spokesman said no-one had been injured.
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Imagine a car boot sale and you probably think of wallpaper tables covered in cheap tat.
But the Art Car Boot Fair is a spin on the traditional sale. Instead of bric-a-brac, limited edition artworks by top British artists are sold from the back of their motors. | By Genevieve HassanBBC News entertainment reporter
Created and curated by Karen Ashton, the one-day fair spawned from an idea to hold a London-to-Brighton car rally with a boot sale afterwards.
It has been running annually in London since 2004 and has just held its ninth edition.
More than 70 British artists participated this year including Sir Peter Blake, Tracey Emin, Gavin Turk, Polly Morgan, Mat Collishaw and Bob & Roberta Smith.
Artists can only have a pitch by invite and, although they don't have to pay a fee, they have to be in attendance on the day to sell their work.
The event is sponsored by Vauxhall, who provide the motors - both new and classic - for the stalls to be set up around.
The other similarity with the traditional car park jumble sale is that the artworks are sold for knockdown prices - with pieces changing hands for as little as £10.
With the draw of big-name artists, more than 4,000 art-lovers attended the event with some queuing for hours to get their hands on affordable works. Some even camped overnight.
First in line were Taylor Wright and Josh Wright, both 18 years old from High Wycombe (although unrelated, despite the surname). They started the queue at 01:00 on Sunday morning to ensure they would be the first in line.
"We wanted to grab a bargain and meet some artists," said Josh, who was armed with a wishlist of artworks.
"I'm quite poor so I'm only going for a Peter Blake today," Taylor Wright added.
A quick straw poll of the queue found most people were also after a print by the 79-year-old, best known for his Sgt Pepper's record sleeve.
His work - revealed on the day - was an A4 souvenir poster of the car boot fair which this year also celebrated the Queen's Jubilee.
Limited to a signed edition of just 250, they were being sold for a mere £40 - and all were snapped up in just over an hour.
Sir Peter has been to the fair every year since it began (excluding last year, when he was too ill to attend) and first sold wood engravings before becoming known for prints marking the event.
'Democratising art'
For Sir Peter, the fair was a "nice day out"; a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones.
Gavin Turk, who rose to prominence during the so-called Young British Artists wave during the 1990s, shared his sentiment.
"I love the fact that the artists themselves come and sell their own work," he said.
"It somehow democratises art and makes it available to more people and helps the audience understand art."
Taxidermy artist Polly Morgan agreed: "It means people who can't normally afford to buy your bigger work can get something and it's a fun day out."
As well as giving artists the chance to meet the people who buy their artwork, the fair also allows them to create pieces they may not ordinarily produce for an exhibition.
Morgan presented a new edition at the sale, giving her take on the furry dice - pheasant chicks being strangled by octopus tentacles. Just the sort of thing you'd want to hook on your rear-view mirror.
Some artists also created live works at the fair, including graffiti artist Pure Evil - recently featured on BBC One's The Apprentice - who produced signed screen prints for £20 out the back of his bright orange van.
Jessica Albarn, sister to Blur frontman Damon Albarn, also gave a drawing performance in a garden shed.
As well as creating some limited edition packets of wildflower seeds to raise funds for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, she spent the day drawing the insects and sold them as originals.
"I like the spirit of the fair," Albarn said.
"It's nice for artists to represent themselves and sell our wares without going through a gallery and you have a bit of freedom to have fun."
Secondary market
With art up for grabs at relatively cheap prices, a proportion of it inevitably ends up on auction sites with sellers hoping for a quick profit.
Last year, limited edition Damien Hirst prints sold at the fair for a meagre £300. They were changing hands just days after for £3,000.
"The whole point of selling them cheap is you hope people like and keep them, and it gives them the chance to buy something," said Sir Peter.
"Certainly in the first years there were people who would come and buy four or five, but we recognise them now so we only sell one. They go on eBay and I don't like that, but it's going to happen."
Morgan added: "It's a shame some people do it quite so cynically but I guess if they've been queuing for many hours or camped out overnight maybe they deserve a bit of money back."
"People that buy it for twice the price are quite foolish because they could probably buy something direct from the artist for less than that."
Turk also suggested immediate sales on the secondary market may not be a bad thing: "In a way, the fact the art ends up on eBay is almost quite exciting as it means the marketplace carries on even after the fair."
"But on the whole, most people are buying it for themselves."
Early queuers Taylor Wright and Josh Wright said they had no intention of selling their purchases after managing to snap up exactly what they wanted.
"I got a Sir Peter Blake Jubilee print so I'm very happy," Taylor said. "I'm going to try and get a nice frame and keep it at home because I like it."
Josh added: "I got a Peter Blake as well and a Marcus Harvey edition of five - so it paid off coming really early."
The fair is expected to return next year with a retrospective to celebrate its 10th birthday.
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Four Tornado jets from RAF Lossiemouth have arrived in southern Italy to bolster UK operations over Libya.
| The Ministry of Defence said the aircraft will be used for reconnaissance and to increase the strike capability of operations over Libya.
The Moray base was saved from closure under defence cuts announced on Monday.
Kinloss, also in Moray, and Leuchars in Fife will shut as air bases and be taken over by the Army.
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A 19-month-old girl travelling on a bus with her mother was hit on the back of the head and shouted at by a man, police said. | The incident happened on the number 29 bus from Luton town centre to St Margaret's Avenue on 4 February.
Bedfordshire Police said the child had been crying while in a pushchair next to her mother.
"This is a truly shocking incident where a baby was assaulted on a bus in broad daylight," said PC Carolyn Hoare.
"We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour in our county."
The force has released CCTV images of a man it would like to speak to in relation to the assault.
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Plans to build a large biomass plant and eco park on the site of the former Anglesey Aluminium works near Holyhead have taken an important step forward. | The UK government has approved design changes to the proposals by Chester-based Lateral Power.
Plans for a biomass plant at the site were first put forward in 2009 and a licence was granted in 2012.
The factory could create 400 new jobs with an extra 600 in the construction phase.
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), which first granted permission for the plant in 2011, said ministerial consent had been given to allow for some technological changes to the biomass generating station at Penrhos Works.
The plant is expected to generate 299MW of electricity, which is enough to power about 300,000 homes.
Anglesey Aluminium smelting works shut in 2009 with the loss of nearly 400 jobs.
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A man has appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to the murder of a man in a street in Skegness in Lincolnshire. | Paul Barnett, 45, was discovered on Grosvenor Road in the resort on 22 September, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Paul Bodell, 37, of Grosvenor Road, Skegness, appeared at Lincoln Crown Court.
A trial - due to last six days - has been set for 22 March and the defendant was remanded in custody.
More news from across Lincolnshire
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One by one the scandals have become etched on the public consciousness. The mass killings by Harold Shipman. The deaths of babies undergoing heart surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary and born under the care of Morecambe Bay maternity services. The needless suffering of patients at Stafford Hospital. | Nick TriggleHealth correspondent@nicktriggleon Twitter
Now we can add Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire to that list. News that 456 patients died after they were given opiate painkillers without reason is one of those moments that send a shudder through the NHS - and the nation.
All these scandals are, of course, different. Shipman was about the actions of one person. Stafford was an institutional failing on a mass scale. Gosport has elements of both.
But there are similarities too that run through all of them - and they go to the heart of what perhaps still remains an uncomfortable truth about healthcare.
Whether it is in the GP's surgery, on a ward in a hospital, a room in a care home or from the comfort of your sofa during a home visit, patients see doctors and other healthcare staff when they are at their most vulnerable.
The interactions are based on trust. A trust which is overwhelmingly repaid by the thousands of dedicated staff who treat millions of patients every week in the NHS.
But bad practices can set in and poor care can go unchallenged. It is the common thread that runs through all four cases. And it begs two questions.
How can it happen?
In unveiling his findings, panel chairman Bishop James Jones talked about the "institutionalised" nature of what went wrong at Gosport.
A culture where the unacceptable became acceptable had developed. It seems shocking.
But it shouldn't. In any workplace, the culture and values are key. In an organisation the size of the NHS, they come from the top, but also from those you work with directly.
Peter Carter, the former general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has talked about the NHS being a series of "microclimates", where good care can exist next to bad.
He visited Stafford Hospital before the horror of what happened came to light. He was shown around wards, but not the ones that were at the centre of the subsequent inquiry. Afterwards he praised the care he saw.
It can make identifying problems very difficult. It requires those on the inside - staff or patients - to blow the whistle.
But time and time again that doesn't happen. Inquiries into Stafford Hospital, Morecambe Bay and Shipman detail the trusts placed in the system and staff. When people do have concerns there is a temptation to want to avoid making a "nuisance" of yourself or a fear of reprisals, according to Sir Robert Francis, who led the Stafford inquiry.
Even when concerns are raised, they are not always acted on. This has happened in all these cases.
Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb, who has been active in supporting the families in the Gosport case, has described how the hospital "closed ranks". Similar conclusions were drawn by the inquiries into Bristol, Morecambe Bay and Stafford Hospital.
Hence, it has taken relatives 20 years of fighting to get the full scale of what went on at Gosport into the light.
Could something similar be happening today?
The NHS has changed dramatically in the past 10 to 20 years. The Shipman case led to changes into how deaths are recorded, controlled medicines are monitored and GPs are assessed.
The Bristol Royal Infirmary and Stafford Hospital cases led to an overhaul in how hospitals are inspected and death rates used to hold them to account.
Whistle-blowers now enjoy greater protection when they come forward.
Patients are encouraged to play an active role in making decisions about their care, with doctors and nurses consulting with them in a way that would have been unimaginable previously.
It means healthcare is undoubtedly safer than it was when each of these scandals were unfolding.
But consider this: the failings at Morecambe Bay were still going on as recently as 2013.
Indeed, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, in his statement to Parliament on Gosport, said it was only right that "searching questions" are asked about whether everything is being done to prevent another scandal.
You need only look at the most recent NHS staff survey in England to see the system is far from perfect. Nearly a third did not feel secure in raising concerns about unsafe care. An even greater number were not confident their complaints would be acted on.
The scandals that haunt the NHS
Dr Harold Shipman - Responsible for killing at least 215 patients over a 25-year period from the mid 1970s. Many were elderly women who died after he injected them with lethal doses of diamorphine.
Stafford Hospital - Criticised for causing suffering to hundreds of patients during the late 2000s. Trust in charge of hospital later placed into administration.
Bristol heart deaths - Thirty-five babies died and dozens more left brain-damaged by poor practices identified at child heart surgery unit between 1991 and 1995
Morecambe Bay - An inquiry said a "lethal mix" of failures in maternity care led to the deaths of 11 babies and a mother over nine years.
Gosport War Memorial Hospital - Independent panel found there was a "disregard for human life" at hospital where inappropriate use of strong painkillers linked to the deaths of over 450 people.
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Over the past year, from Bermuda and the Bahamas to Ireland and Orkney, hundreds of pairs of unworn shoes have washed up on beaches. But how did they get there, and why are scientists so interested in where they are being found? | By Hamish MackayBBC News
In September 2018, on Flores Island, in the remote Atlantic archipelago of the Azores, Gui Ribeiro began noticing strange items washing ashore.
At first they appeared in small numbers and could be dismissed as ordinary artefacts lost by individuals - mere flotsam among the churn of man-made waste that inhabits the world's oceans.
Soon, though, it became clear these Azorean arrivals were part of a greater group.
Trainers, flip-flops and a selection of other footwear were appearing with a regularity that singled them out from the other tidal deposits.
They were the same brands, in the same styles, and, for some of the trainers at least, the same production dates were printed on a label sewn into the tongue of each shoe. Moreover, every item of footwear appeared to have been unworn.
In the months that followed, Mr Ribeiro retrieved about 60 Nike trainers, along with a host of other brands.
News of the findings began to spread.
Seven months later, and 1,400 miles (2,250km) away in Cornwall, UK, Tracey Williams started noticing a similar trend.
"A friend in Ireland asked me if I had found any," says Ms Williams. "I went out the next day and found quite a few.
"Beach cleaners or beach-combers tend to network, so if a certain item is washing up, we quickly find out about it and we're then on the lookout."
As well as the Azores and south-west England, specimens of this scattered footwear flotilla have so far been found on beaches in Bermuda, the Bahamas, France, Ireland, Orkney and the Channel Islands.
The source of all these shoes is believed to be a single ship.
"Through the research I have done," Mr Ribeiro says, "everything indicates they may have been from some of the 70 to 76 containers that fell overboard from the Maersk Shanghai."
In early spring last year, the Maersk Shanghai - a 324m (1,063ft) vessel capable of carrying more than 10,000 shipping containers - was travelling from Norfolk, Virginia, down the east coast of the US to Charleston, South Carolina.
On the evening of 3 March - 17 miles from the Oregon Inlet, off the coast of North Carolina - it was caught in a storm. While battling high winds and rough seas, a stack of its cargo-laden containers toppled overboard.
At the time, the maritime trade press reported that aircraft crews sent to locate the missing containers had found nine of them floating, but that seven had later sunk.
It is not possible to say with certainty all the recovered footwear originated from the Maersk Shanghai - the vessel's operator Zodiac Maritime did not respond to BBC questions on the matter. Nike also chose not to comment when contacted.
However, two footwear brands, Triangle and Great Wolf Lodge, confirmed the examples of their products that had been retrieved did originate from the ship.
And Mr Ribeiro is not the only beach cleaner to be convinced they came from the Maersk Shanghai.
Liam McNamara, from County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland, has found "well over 100" shoes - mostly Nike trainers - that in his opinion "most definitely" came from that vessel.
"One company has admitted to losing stock from that shipment and another admitted losing stock at sea," he says.
"They've been turning up all over the place."
So what impact can events like this have?
"Whatever it is - if it is sinking to the bottom or washing up on beaches - it's going to have a detrimental impact to the marine wildlife," says Lauren Eyles, from the Marine Conservation Society.
"The shoes will be breaking down to micro-plastics over years, which will have huge impacts on the amazing wildlife we have both in the UK and worldwide."
Estimates vary, but it is thought about 10 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans each year.
Asked how big a role container spills play in that pollution, Ms Eyles says it is not fully understood.
"I don't think there's enough data on it to draw proper conclusions," she explains.
The World Shipping Council estimates that of the 218 million containers transported annually, just over 1,000 go overboard. But one oceanographer, who worked with Nike helping to clear up a spill of its shoes in the early 1990s, believes the real number is likely to be higher.
"It's a number the industry likes to dispute," says Dr Curtis Ebbesmeyer. "I think it's in the thousands of containers annually. The question really is: what's in them?"
It is at least possible in this case, Dr Ebbesmeyer says, to estimate the size of the spill.
"A container can hold about 10,000 sneakers. So if you say 70 containers multiplied by 10,000, that gives you an upper limit [of 700,000 sneakers] that could be out there."
Despite the environmental damage, scientists can salvage something from such incidents - a better understanding of our oceans and the currents that drive them.
While many of the shoes from the Maersk Shanghai have been washing up on beaches, far more are likely to be doing laps of the North Atlantic ocean, stuck in a network of powerful currents.
When and where the shoes appear, Dr Ebbesmeyer says, can tell us how fast the currents are moving.
"If they've gone about halfway around [from North Carolina to the UK] in just over a year, then it takes about three years to go once around the North Atlantic. So that's the typical orbital period of the sneakers, but that hasn't been studied by oceanographers much at all."
Even more enlightening, Dr Ebbesmeyer says, is how the shape of the shoes seems to dictate where they end up.
"The left and the right sneakers float with different orientation to the wind," he explains. "So when the wind blows on them they will go to different places. So on some beaches you tend to get the left sneakers and on others you get the right."
Despite the criticism of the commercial shipping industry, Dr Ebbesmeyer believes it has started to clean up its act. But he says more could be done.
"It takes something like 30, 40, 50 years for the ocean to get rid of this stuff," he says.
"I think companies that have spills think we will just forget about it - but it just keeps washing up. So how do we hold companies responsible? Right now there is no accountability."
Part of the problem is that shipping companies only have to report lost containers if they could become a hazard for other vessels or if they include substances deemed "harmful to the marine environment", such as corrosive or toxic chemicals.
While the Marine Conservation Society says products like trainers harm marine environments, they do not count as "harmful" for the purpose of reporting cargo lost at sea.
The International Maritime Organization - the UN's shipping regulator - told the BBC it recognised "more needs to be done to identify and report lost containers" and it had "adopted an action plan to address marine plastic litter from ships".
For Ms Williams, who goes down to clean beaches near her home in Newquay, Cornwall multiple times a day, there is no easy solution.
"Nobody wants their goods spread across beaches and polluting the ocean," she says. "But I think it would be good if companies could be more open about cargo spills - if they could put their hands up and say: 'Yes there has been an incident.'"
"These things are going to happen, but there doesn't seem to be any responsibility when they do," Mr McNamara adds.
"The bottom line has to go back to the shipping companies; they're responsible for their cargo."
All images subject to copyright.
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A man has been charged with historical sexual offences following allegations of abuse at two former care homes.
| The charges relate to Taxal Edge children's home in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire between 1975 and 1978 and the former Kilrie children's home in Knutsford between 1980 and 1991.
Bruce McClean, from Runcorn, is facing a total of 40 charges relating to eight alleged victims, Cheshire Police said.
The 61-year-old is due before Stockport Magistrates' Court on 26 February.
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The mood music has suddenly changed again. There's oh so much Brexit speculation in the air. Will an EU-UK trade deal be announced early next week? The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier is expected to brief the 27 member states early Friday about the state of play. After months of often tortuous and circular negotiations - could this be it? | Katya AdlerEurope editor@BBCkatyaadleron Twitter
Well, it could be. But "it" might still be a week or (not too much) more away.
Frankly, "it" could have easily taken place yesterday or even a month or two ago.
The main three sticking points in talks - fish, competition regulations and how to govern the deal if it is ever agreed - have been clear from the start.
Each side knew compromises would inevitably be called for. But whether or not to make them, and who should move first? That's what we've been waiting for the two parties to decide.
Of course, EU coastal states, like France, the Netherlands and Spain, have long known full well they'd need to reduce their catch in UK waters. But they haven't wanted to budge in negotiations until they saw UK government flexibility on another key issue: competition rules.
No 10 no longer wants to be tied to Brussels' regulatory apron strings after Brexit. That's a given.
But the EU has been waiting for the UK to accept that it won't offer tariff- and quota-free access to the single market to a serious competitor on its doorstep (the UK) unless that competitor signs up to commonly agreed standards on fair competition.
Brussels also wants legal guarantees that those rules and standards will then be respected in practice. Mutual trust is in short supply.
Which leads us back to the government's Internal Market Bill.
The EU wants assurance that the UK government will remove or won't re-instate (depending on the date an EU-UK agreement is settled) clauses in the bill which contradict the Protocol on Northern Ireland, signed by Boris Johnson and EU leaders last year.
The government insists those clauses are needed as a safety net to preserve trade links across the UK. The EU says they break an international treaty and threaten not only the integrity of the single market but also the Northern Ireland peace process. Something the government denies.
Once UK and EU negotiators are finally clear which compromises the other is willing to make, then the hows and whens of announcing the deal come down to choreography and how to "sell" the deal.
Both sides have to be able to come away from the negotiating table pronouncing this a win.
Arguably this "PR drive" is particularly crucial for Boris Johnson. The deal will be a thin one. A pretty distant relationship to the EU - at least in terms of trade - means new costs and red tape for businesses.
To be clear: in these last hours and days of talks, the choice facing the government is not between either a hard or a soft Brexit. That ship has already sailed. The UK is leaving the EU's customs union and single market. The government's choice now is between a hard Brexit with a deal, or no deal with the EU at all.
Remember, whatever happens now - deal or no deal - this will in no way be the end of EU-UK relations talks. Neither financial services, nor pet travel have been part of these negotiations, for example.
Finding agreement on those topics and others, such as easing the flow of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will likely be easier if this deal is agreed. It should smooth bilateral relations - or at least, not sour them any further.
For now though, handle all talk about an imminent trade deal announcement with care.
It's true, there's little time left to negotiate. There are only six weeks till the end of the transition period. Not only must the deal be agreed by then, it also needs to have been signed off by parliament in the UK and the European parliament too.
But - until we know for sure that on those tough political compromises, the UK and EU have simultaneously held their nose and jumped - all the rumours and whispers you hear are just smoke and mirrors.
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The Aurora Borealis - better known as the Northern Lights - has been giving rare and spectacular displays over parts of England.
| The light show, which is caused by electrically charged particles from the Sun entering the Earth's atmosphere, was visible as the Earth moves into a new alignment with the Sun.
The display was spotted across the North East, Yorkshire and Cumbria.
Here are some of the images that were captured.
Aurora hunting in the UK
iWonder: How can I see the Northern Lights in the UK?
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Changes to Guernsey's population policy, which were agreed in January, will be debated by the new States before being put into action. | Deputies agreed to start work on a system of short, medium and long-term employment permits to replace the current housing licence system.
Housing Minister Dave Jones said it had taken three years of work to get to this point.
He said it was vital to have the full support of new members.
"The majority of them will not have studied that document in depth," he said.
"It's pointless doing huge amounts of work if the majority of the new States members say 'actually we don't agree with [it]'."
He said the chief minister was trying to find dates when the strategy could be presented to all States members so the work could move forward.
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RAF fighter pilot Andy Green intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h).
Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the Bloodhound car will mount an assault on the land speed record.
Wing Cmdr Green is writing a diary for the BBC News Website about his experiences working on the Bloodhound SSC (SuperSonic Car) project and the team's efforts to inspire national interest in science and engineering.
| By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder
COSWORTH POWER COMES ON BOARD
The end of the year is getting closer and work continues flat-out to finish the chassis design, before manufacture starts in the New Year.
There is growing interest in the project from sponsors both here and abroad, and although things are a bit hand-to-mouth right now, major deals are now coming in. On Wednesday, we announced that F1 engine supplier Cosworth was coming on board, and we'll be signing up another great name in just a few weeks (I promised this back in August, but it really is close now!). These will help a lot.
We are still on track to have the car built by the end of next year and test-running on a runway in the UK in early 2012. Meanwhile, we are going to do a pressure-fed rocket test at full power in the near future, to prove the catalyst pack under maximum load.
The catalyst pack needs to cope with over 900 litres of HTP (concentrated hydrogen peroxide) being forced through it at over 1300 pounds per square inch (76 Bar). To produce this pressure and flow rate, the pump is driven at 11,000 revs per minute and needs up to 700 hp to turn it. That's where Cosworth come in. We've now got one of their latest F1 engine (yes, really) as our Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) just to turn it.
The evolution of the external shape continues, with a look at the T-tail configuration. Having the rear winglet right at the top is good for the aerodynamics, but not for structural rigidity, so we're looking at moving it half-way down the fin for extra strength. The aerodynamic testing is being done right now, so we can confirm this change soon.
Meanwhile, the Fin continues to fill up with names (the Union Flag is made up from thousands of names of our supporters) - now's the time to get your name on the fin before it's full!
Ron Ayers, our enduringly brilliant aerodynamics and performance expert, has developed a model of the V-shaped wheel interaction with the desert. His figures indicate that the drag will be much lower than our previous estimates, as the wheel "planes" on the surface at high speed, like a boat hull.
Is he right? I don't know - but history indicates that he usually is. The reduction in drag means that we can widen the rear-wheel track still further, from its original 1.8m out to 2.2m, increasing the car's stability by nearly a fifth - which gets my vote!
Another advantage of the V-shaped wheels is that they will be much more aerodynamic than the previous square-edged designs, which might allow us to reduce or even remove the rear wheel fairings. This will avoid any problems of damage from the huge vibration and heat from the jet and rocket.
October has seen some supply-chain successes. As well as our APU above, we've found a couple of possible suppliers for the carbon-carbon disc brakes that the car will use at "slow" speed - below 250mph. With new sources for the carbon discs, we've decided not to use a surface drag brake like the one used on the Craig Breedlove/Steve Fossett car.
By the way, the Fossett car is up for sale, so if they can find a buyer with a few million dollars, then we might have some 800+ mph competition by next year.
I really hope they do - it will make the race to 1,000 mph that much more exciting if there are other challengers for the Land Speed Record. Other cars to study and compare will also add another element to our education programme, which has now reached over 4,000 schools and colleges. If your school isn't studying Bloodhound science yet, now's the time to sign up!
I think we've also found our ideal chute supplier. After two years of looking, I went to talk to Survival Equipment Services. They've got everything that we need for both the runway testing and the high-speed running, and they are keen to help. Stopping the car is important (acceleration is optional as I can always throttle back, but when we hit 1,000 mph, slowing down becomes compulsory!).
The airbrake design is also coming on. The problem with modelling airbrake airflow is that they create a lot of turbulence - in other words, the flow is unstable. This is a very complex problem for a computer and needs a huge amount of computing power. Hence we're running the problem on a computer called HECToR - one of the most powerful supercomputers in the UK (500 million million calculations per second). Answers to follow shortly...
Bloodhound has been out to meet the public, with our first visit to London. The exclusive bank Coutts hosted the show car in its front window on the Strand, generating great interest from passers-by and some fun photographs when we arrived.
Bloodhound was also a major part of the Land Speed Record weekend at Coventry Transport Museum. Thrust 2 took the record from the Americans back in October 1983 and Thrust SSC broke that record (and the sound barrier) in October 1997 - so the UK has now held the record for a total of 27 years.
It was interesting to compare Bloodhound SSC with the current record holder, Thrust SSC, which set the current record with 763mph.
Bloodhound SSC will have more power than Thrust SSC, but only half the weight and less than half the drag - which is why it's so much faster. From a standing start, Bloodhound will be stationary 10 miles away in 100 seconds. That's what I call performance.
The 10 miles in question is of course in the Northern Cape of South Africa. Great news from there also: we have now got all of the environmental clearances in place and can start work on the desert. Now there's just the small matter of clearing the 24 million square metres of desert surface that Bloodhound will need to run.
Our friends at the Northern Cape are fired up about creating the world's fastest race track - so a huge thank you to them in advance - and I'll tell you more about this epic piece of activity month.
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Portrait Salon is perhaps unique in the world of photographic exhibitions as it comprises material rejected from another show. This is the fourth year that material submitted to, and rejected by, the Taylor Wessing National Portrait Gallery Photographic Portrait Prize has been brought together. | Phil CoomesPicture editor
This year Christiane Monarchi (editor of Photomonitor), Emma Taylor (Creative Advice Network) and photographer Martin Usbourne (Hoxton Mini Press) selected 70 portraits from 1,184 submissions.
Emma Taylor notes that the judges had to follow their "gut instincts" when selecting images, due to limited time to assess each entry, though she feels that "there's something rather liberating about this, something pure".
She adds the chosen pictures are "images that made us smile, images that made us question, images so beautiful we unanimously cheered their submission".
As you would expect, the work is engaging and diverse. It carries on the tradition of past shows and feels like one put together by photographers for photographers. The pictures are what is important, and the viewer will find much to delight.
Portrait Salon was founded by Carole Evans and James O Jenkins in 2011, and this year the show opens at Four Corners, London on 6 November. It will then tour to Fuse Art Space in Bradford, Oriel Colwyn Gallery in Clwyd, Napier University in Edinburgh as well as Birmingham, and Bristol.
Further details can be found on the Portrait Salon website.
Here is a selection of the pictures in the exhibition.
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One video filmed through a doorway appears to show a woman looking at a teenage boy lying in a pool of blood on a pavement, as a riot policeman swings a baton at people running past him. | By Jiyar GolBBC Persian
Another from the southern city of Shiraz shows a crowd trying to help a motionless man on the ground, as other people retreat along a smoke-filled street amid the sounds of shouting, screaming and gunfire.
In a third. taken from inside a moving car in the capital, Tehran, a woman can be heard screaming as plainclothes security personnel or militiamen detain a man.
It was the fear of such footage reaching the outside world that prompted the authorities in Iran to shut down access to the internet for more than eight days earlier this month, as protests against a sharp rise in the price of petrol spread across the country.
Now the internet has been partially restored, videos have been appearing on social media that paint a picture of a government crackdown more brutal and bloodier than many had feared. The identities and stories of the protesters who lost their lives have also emerged.
Conflicting narratives
The Iranian authorities have not released any official figures about casualties, but Amnesty International has received what it considers credible reports that at least 143 protesters were killed after the protests erupted on 15 November.
The human rights group says the deaths resulted almost entirely from the intentional use of firearms by the security forces - though one man was reported to have died after inhaling tear gas and another after being beaten.
Amnesty believes the death toll is significantly higher, and activists and official sources inside Iran have told BBC Persian that it exceeds 200.
An Iranian diplomat dismissed such figures as "speculative" last week and accused "Western entities" of making "baseless allegations", while President Hassan Rouhani blamed the protests on "subversive elements" acting on a plan hatched by Iran's foreign enemies.
However, the videos filmed by Iranians on their smartphones - many of them graphic and difficult to watch - have cast doubt on the government's claims.
The footage appears to show security personnel and members of the paramilitary Basij force, which is frequently used to help suppress dissent, beating up unarmed protesters in the streets and firing live round into crowds at close range.
'Thousands injured or detained'
Continuing calls for donations of blood by Iranian health officials also suggest that thousands of people have been injured in the crackdown.
Hospital staff have told BBC Persian that security officers are going to hospitals to look for wounded protesters. One doctor said the officers were removing bandages to check whether they were covering bullet wounds and arresting anyone who had them.
The judiciary said on Friday that about 100 "leaders, heads and main figures of the unrest" have been arrested by the Revolutionary Guards, and that a large number of people who had taken part in protests but not caused any damage had been released.
But sources inside Iran have told BBC Persian that the number of detainees is in the thousands.
In some cities, military barracks, sports venues and schools have been converted to detention centres. A video from a person living in a high-rise building near one school appeared to show detainees being manhandled by security officers.
Despite the assertion by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the protesters had "roots outside of the country", the Ministry of Intelligence told parliament that most of those held were unemployed youths from poor families.
'We live like beggars'
Journalists based in Iran were limited in their ability to report on the protests or were too afraid to do so, and those based elsewhere were hampered by the internet shutdown.
But BBC Persian, which is banned from Iran, was able to get in touch by telephone and other means with citizen journalists, activists and other trusted sources on the ground.
Despite the judiciary warning people that circulating videos of the unrest was a criminal offence, we received footage from locations all over the country.
The videos showed the protesters targeting symbols of the government, the clerical establishment and the security forces, as well as banks and petrol stations.
The epicentres of the protests were predominantly Kurdish towns on the western border with Iraq, as well as areas on the outskirts of major cities like Tehran, Karaj and Shiraz. All are places with among the highest levels of unemployment in the country.
"The price of petrol is rising, we are poorer," protesters in Shiraz chanted in one video.
"The supreme leader lives like a God. We, the people live like beggars," said people in Malard, near Tehran in another.
"No to Gaza, no to Lebanon. We sacrifice our lives for Iran" was a chant heard in Isfahan.
Clearly, there is disquiet about Iran's activities in the Middle East. The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) has spent billions of dollars arming, training and paying militias in the region, saying that if the force does not fight Iran's enemies beyond its borders then it will have to face them on the streets of Tehran.
But the protesters in the streets believe the money should have been invested in their country and their future.
US sanctions reinstated by President Donald Trump last year when he abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran have targeted the country's oil and banking sectors. The sanctions, combined with corruption and mismanagement, have pushed the Iranian economy to the brink of collapse. But the crisis has not persuaded the government to change its policies.
Victims' stories
State media and newspapers close to the security forces depicted the protesters as hooligans, who they said were seeking to loot and vandalise public property.
But the stories BBC Persian has heard from the families of those killed paint a different picture.
Fatima, a 40-year-old mother of two, was one of the demonstrators killed near Tehran.
Her family said she went out to protest against unemployment and inflation.
Another victim was Armin Qaderi, a 10-year-old boy, from Kermanshah. He died after going out to buy bread, according to his family.
Many families told BBC Persian that their relatives went out to express their anger at the economic crisis but that the authorities answered them with bullets.
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Rail passengers are facing fare increases from January. | In England some rail fares will rise by 6.2% or double the rate of inflation, but for other areas the rise may be higher.
Scotland will see ticket prices rise by 4.2%, while Wales has still to set a figure.
Commuters across the country have been sending in their reaction. Here is some of what they had to say.
Martin Belk, Edinburgh and London
I live in Edinburgh and London so have experienced rail services on both sides of the border, and travel regularly between Glasgow, Edinburgh and London.
The services are already shambolic in Scotland, and the fares have already gone up.
They spend thousands for unnecessary ticket barriers and ticket attendants to catch the lone one or two fare cheaters, but cannot even put enough coaches to services the customers who paid full price for a seat.
On the rush hour trains between Edinburgh and Glasgow there are only three carriages so everyone stands and the services are almost always late.
This industry needs to be overhauled and regulated.
To commute between Glasgow and Edinburgh every day is £14. It is a disgraceful ripoff and just seems like a mis-managed mess.
I've been travelling by train in England now for two months and the number of carriages aren't as much as a problem and the fares aren't as high for the distances travelled.
The staff are also much friendlier and more helpful.
I can't believe the problems in the Scottish rail service aren't being addressed.
Dan Smith, Garforth, West Yorkshire
The price rise is meaningless to me as I've already been priced out of using public transport.
It costs me around £5.50 a day to drive into York and back, whereas the 15 minute train journey is £15.
Even if I got a season ticket it still works out cheaper to drive, so I now drive from Garforth to my job in York.
I am lucky as there is free parking at work, otherwise the cost would be very high.
Rail companies seem intent on increasing revenue by raising prices without considering that they could raise revenue by attracting more passengers by offering realistic prices.
Parimal Kumar, Walton on Thames
I'm a commuter travelling from Walton on Thames to Waterloo. This time last year there was a 6% rise in ticket prices - judging by the news I'm expecting a similar rise again.
Genuine competition on each line is needed. A free market needs competition and proper regulation.
We should not be in a position that South West Trains is the only supplier of services to south west of England.
This could be implemented similarly to landing slots at major airports. One train company runs the 0715, for example, and another the 0730 - with price incentives if you always take the same train.
Unless you have plurality of choice, there will be no competition and hence rail users (be they commuters or others) will be screwed.
Reform of season tickets will be helpful as well - bringing out a carnet system where you buy a series of tickets in advance and use them when you need them, rather than fixed weekly, monthly or annual tickets. This will help people who don't commute every day.
Dominic Topham, Teddington
I am expecting an increase in the fares. Currently rail tickets constitute about 8% of my salary. I work in Canary Wharf, but also travel to see my daughter in Sheffield.
The increase will carry on because we have private companies running the railways. Private companies quite rightly want to make a profit and have their shares increase in value, but who pays for it?
Recently my family went to the south of France by train and it's amazing how the French get everything right. Here it just seems to be short term profits.
We need to set it up as a whole company and that means everything including Network Rail. Not nationalised per se, but independent and so profits can be re-invested into the whole network.
How does the government get money back? Simple, tax the railway as a normal company.
I think we can all agree it isn't working as it should. Money isn't being reinvested in the railways the way things stand.
Iain Paton, Linlithgow
To travel to my job in Glasgow, I pay £16 a day. This works out at 13% of my salary, increasing to 15% over the next couple of years if these rises continue, and that's even with just 1% above inflation in Scotland.
The operator - First Group - raises fares by a higher amount on the commuter routes, balanced by lower rises elsewhere.
The standard of service in Scotland is abysmal. Trains are frequently cut short, half-length during the peak period. They are often late, although not counted as late due to the strange monitoring regime that allows exceptions and five minutes delay to be counted as "on time".
The ticket office in my town is usually closed due to "staff shortages". If the weather is slightly inclement, this invariably results in cancellations and delays which are inexcusable in our foreseeably wet climate and during cold winters.
One of the reasons for train delays and overcrowding is a lack of rolling stock which I believe is down to poor maintenance and an unwillingness to invest. On one route, we had a slam-door carriage train and we were crammed into the guard's van on a particular occasion.
To add insult to potential injury, there is an attitude of hostility to passengers on the part of ScotRail, with flexi-pass holders being subjected to additional draconian checks and a cosmetic ban on alcohol induced anti social behaviour.
Craig Anderson-Jones, Southampton
I earn an average wage - not great, but not minimal, yet I pay 8.5% of my pre tax wage on train travel alone. That's £1784 a year.
Put on top of that the cost of childcare (nearly £600 per month) and my bills to get to work are nearly £1600 per month.
To some not much, to me a lot. I can't even afford to get on the property ladder, so I have to rent.
I don't actually think I could afford to get to work if this keeps going on!
It's a never-ending circle. The thinking seems to be: let's get people into work but pay them more if they stay on benefits, let's shake up the economy by increasing fuel and public transport costs.
I enjoy working, but more and more I question why I'm working when I see a lot more people with a better standard of life than me. I do not want to claim beneifts and want to earn my own living.
Ultimately I will be forced to move to a closer location. The cost of driving to work and parking all day makes it even more expensive to get to work.
Personally I think people who do travel distances to work should be able to claim it back or get tax break if they can prove the expenditure.
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For the past week I have been in New York and Washington, talking to key players in the media here. By that, I don't just mean the hated mainstream media, whatever that phrase means. I've also spoken to conservative talk radio hosts who think of Donald Trump as an emissary from the promised land. | Amol RajanMedia editor
And I've come closer to understanding Trump's highly coherent media strategy. In short, his "war with" the media ought to be updated to "marriage to" - or "affair with".
It turns out, as I argued some weeks back, that the man alleged to be at war with the media is threatening to create a golden age for it. Whether liberal, conservative or neither; print, television, radio or web, this former reality TV star is boosting subscribers, traffic, ratings and revenues all over the shop.
Some people think Trump's pronouncements are not so much a media strategy as pure madness. Perhaps so. Yet - like Polonius - I detect method in it.
Three principles, simple and wholly unoriginal each, have coagulated to create it. In their variety and efficacy, they contain lessons not just on the psychology of this remarkable leader, but also the nature of modern media.
A dead cat on a table
First, Trump evinces a disarming fondness for dead cats. Not literally, you understand. I mean the dead cats that Lynton Crosby specialised in. You may recall that the Australian strategist, one of the most effective campaign managers and manipulators of media in modern history, had a habit of throwing 'dead cats' into the national conversation.
The technique is simple. If you and I were having a conversation, and then suddenly someone threw a dead cat onto a table, we'd stop talking about whatever riveting subject had heretofore detained us, and talk about the dead cat instead. Dead cats appearing out of nowhere are more interesting than most subjects of daily conversation.
Trump's tweet about his predecessor wire-tapping his phones is probably the most lively dead cat in our time. One simple claim - for which many US media say he lacks robust evidence, and that could not be substantiated by spokesman Sean Spicer - has dominated the news agenda for a week, and taken the sting out of stories about Trump's relationship with Russia.
Second, use digital media to speak directly to the base, without the filter of journalistic judgement and interpretation. Trump notoriously uses social media to cut journalists out of the picture. Why bother being interviewed by a pesky hack, when you have 26.3 million followers on Twitter?
But because journalists are so fond of Twitter - it's a personalised news feed, after all - there can be a tendency to ignore Facebook, where Trump also has more than 20 million followers, who between them have social networks with hundreds of millions of people. And so too talk radio, which is a bigger phenomenon in the US than Britain. Trump often speaks to the likes of Rush Limbaugh.
Andrew Wilkow presents The Wilkow Majority on Sirius XM's The Patriot Channel, which boasts 31.3 million subscribers ("We're Right. They're Wrong"). He told me that conservative talk radio hosts have been uniquely effective in exploiting the opportunities of digital media. He said American journalism had for years been a "closed guild", but that had now been smashed open.
Third, favour conservative and even conspiratorial media outlets in press briefings. We know that Spicer, whose Spicer Doctrine asserts that it is the role of government to hold the media to account, has sometimes cut traditional media out of briefings.
A marriage of convenience?
We know that the most powerful voice in Trump's ear is that of Stephen Bannon, the anti-globalist who used to run Breitbart News.
And we know from his courting of Fox News that Trump will unashamedly focus his limited time for interviews on sympathetic outlets. He has also given plenty of time, for instance, to Alex Jones of Infowars.
I interviewed Mark Thompson, the former Director-General of the BBC who is now President and CEO of the New York Times. They have seen subscriber numbers soar.
When I asked if Trump's war with media was a marriage of convenience, Thompson told me that he certainly didn't think of his company as being in partnership with Trump - but there have been very sharp increases in willingness to pay for news.
The year-on-year increase in Times subscribers has added several million dollars in net revenue. They might have grown had Trump never run for office. But this much? No way.
It is, then, an abiding irony of our age that the sustenance of decent and often liberal journalism owes so much to a man who is instinctively suspicious of reporters and popularised the term "fake news".
Dean Baquet, the Executive Editor of the New York Times, said Trump had helped his team to "clarify their mission". After a decade of soul-searching, he added, the news industry has found that its new mission turns out to be similar to the old one: dig deep, find stuff out, and report it fairly.
When, a few weeks ago, this blog pointed out that far from being an enemy of the press, Trump is in fact its saviour, I wondered if comrades in the trade would be offended at the suggestion. To my surprise, many were sympathetic.
Trump is a journalistic challenge in so many ways. How do you reconcile presidential falsehoods with the duty of impartiality? Should you really hang on his every tweet? What does political journalism look like when you get no access to the top?
Aside from all that, however, is another quandary. They might find him unappealing. He might seem hostile to all their most sacred principles. But Trump has put journalists - and journalism - in a debt to him that will never be fully serviced.
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#towerlives is a week-long festival of storytelling and music, on air and on the ground, around the council estate tower blocks of Butetown in Cardiff.
BBC Wales, 1XTRA, Radio 2 and News Online are collaborating all week with documentaries, news reports, features, comedy, spoken word and music.
Haifa Shamsan, who lives in the tower blocks, is part of the rapidly growing Muslim fashion industry and has set her sights on the big time. | By Delyth LloydBBC News
Haifa Shamsan is a proud "hijabi"- a Muslim woman who chooses to wear the hijab, or head scarf, as a symbol of modesty and faith.
She is also a fashion designer who believes passionately that religious beliefs do not have to cramp a woman's style.
"I love to wear colours and I feel like being a hijabi and being modest doesn't just mean wearing black," she says.
"Being modest really just means not showing any flesh. You can show your hands, your feet and your face but you can't show your body. Your clothes should be loose-fitting so if you're wearing trousers they can't be too tight and it's better if you have a longer top.
"Basically you need to make sure you are covering everything that might be appealing to a guy."
But within those parameters, anything goes. Patterns, textures, shapes, it is all up for grabs in Haifa's designs.
"I love to mix vintage and I love to mix heritage pieces," she adds.
"I was brought up in Wales but my family are from Yemen so when I go there, I get fabrics that are really different and that are known to the Yemeni culture. I like to make western styles with them and in that way really mix the two cultures."
Haifa, 27, runs her business - Maysmode - from her flat on the top floor of a tower block in Butetown, Cardiff.
"I started off making clothes for myself because I wanted to be unique in what I wear. People loved my clothes, I started taking part in fashion shows and it went from there.
"Maysmode is known for its single bespoke outfits. Every piece is unique and every piece makes its own statement.
Right now, the label is small but Haifa is thinking big: "I would love to have my own boutique and see my clothes on the high street. I want it to be a massive fashion house - in ten years time, maybe."
The Muslim fashion market is booming. According to the 2015-16 State of the Global Islamic Economy Report, it will be worth £226 billion by 2020 - a projection duly noted by both the big fashion houses and the high street.
In January, Dolce & Gabanna joined the likes of Oscar de la Renta and Tommy Hilfiger in launching a modest-wear range.
House of Fraser has started selling sports hijabs, Uniqlo stocks a range by Muslim designer Hana Tajima and last year H&M released an advert featuring a Muslim model in a hijab.
A growing number of hijabi fashionistas also showcase their personal style on Instagram and YouTube, often racking up hundreds of thousands of followers and views - a far cry from the stereotype of Muslim women as repressed figures, unable to express themselves through the way they look.
"I think it's great because they are spreading positivity to non-Muslims," says Haifa. "They show how we are and how we do things and that we like to be fashionable and take care of how we look.
"This generation has not only had it difficult with being pre-judged but also having to prove to others what we are really like and I guess it's why so many of us have taken on a big role in modest fashion.
"To us hijabis, I feel we make more of an effort to be well-dressed and trendy, so that we aren't stereotyped."
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One of the first major decommissioning projects in the North Sea has been completed with the removal of the Brent Delta platform from its legs. Shell hopes to be able to leave the legs in the sea - a move that has caused concern among environmental groups. | By Kevin KeaneBBC Scotland's environment correspondent
What is Brent Delta?
Brent Delta was one of the first platforms to be built in the very early days of Britain's oil and gas industry.
It sits about 115 miles (185km) north-east of Shetland in a cluster of four platforms which make up the Brent field. Its sister, Brent Bravo, produced its first oil in 1976.
At its peak, in 1982, the four platforms were producing more than half a million barrels of oil a day.
Being one of the first, it is now at the end of its life and has to be removed but that is not as easy as you would think.
Unusually for a platform, the legs of Brent Delta are made of concrete which makes it much more difficult to decommission than one with steel legs.
Although the "topside" has now been removed - that's the bit where all the work happens - the legs will remain in place.
How significant a moment is the decommissioning of Brent Delta?
Brent Delta is one of the first major pieces of infrastructure to be decommissioned in the North Sea and so all eyes are on it.
In fact, because our oil and gas industry is reaching maturity it is one of the first significant decommissioning projects in the world.
On top of that, the Brent field is iconic because traders the world over deal in so-called "Brent Crude".
The North Sea is rapidly entering its decommissioning phase.
More than 100 platforms are forecast to be completely or partially removed over the next decade in the waters of the UK and Norway.
What's going to happen to the platform?
The platform was removed from its legs by the huge double-hulled ship Pioneering Spirit.
Over the next few days it will begin the long journey towards its final resting place in Teesside.
Just outside the harbour, it will be transferred onto a smaller barge to be dragged into position.
A new quay has been built at Able UK's yard to receive the platform and the workforce is on standby to begin dismantling it.
It's estimated that 97% of the structure will be recycled and the work will take 12 months.
Is it controversial?
Not this bit.
The Brent field is being decommissioned in two stages, the first of which is the removal of everything but the legs of Brent Delta.
Stage two is everything else and that is the controversial bit.
Shell has proposed leaving the concrete legs in the sea and allowing them to be subjected to the mercies of the elements.
Their argument is that this is much safer option than trying to remove them and that the impact on the environment, when they do eventually crumble, will be minimal.
But environmental groups are unconvinced and suggest Shell's plans could breach international law.
The company has lodged its plans with the UK government and it is up to them to decide whether to let Shell go ahead.
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In northern Somalia, government officials are warning of a revival of piracy, unless foreign nations - and the naval armada patrolling the coast - do more to help create jobs and security ashore, and to combat illegal fishing at sea. | Andrew HardingAfrica correspondent@BBCAndrewHon Twitter
At first glance, the ramshackle fishing port of Eyl looked much like it did in 2009, when I first drove down a narrow canyon from the surrounding plateau, accompanied by armed security guards, and walked across the white sands towards the sea.
But this time, the hijacked vessels moored offshore were gone - so too were the conspicuously expensive 4 x 4 vehicles with tinted windows that we had seen racing past us.
"We knew it was wrong. But we did it anyway," said Farah, a man in his 30s, who walked across the beach to show me his fishing boat.
He admitted he had been a shore-based pirate leader in Eyl, running a crew of 23 men who had hijacked a Turkish fishing boat and a South Korean cargo vessel in 2008.
"They dropped the ransoms from a small plane into the sea," he explained - $1.8m and $2m (£1.3m) in turn.
"We spent it, or gave it away. The religious leaders and the government persuaded us to stop. I would never become a pirate again. I am just an ordinary fisherman now," he said, although that seemed at odds with his noticeably expensive clothes.
As we spoke, local officials at the edge of the village were marshalling a crowd.
They started to chant slogans - mostly aimed at foreign fishing trawlers, which they said were plundering Somalia's coastal resources, and making it impossible for them to make a living from fishing.
If the protest seemed a little contrived, the frustrations in Eyl are certainly not. I joined a group of men in the local teashop, who bitterly condemned the lack of development, and employment.
"If I don't get a job soon, then yeah, sure, maybe I can go back to piracy. Anything can happen. All these people can be pirates," said unemployed teacher Daoud Ali Mohamed, 28, gesturing around the room.
For years it has been an accepted truth that in the long term, Somali piracy can only be conclusively dealt with onshore.
The foreign warships patrolling off the coast - and the armed guards now present on many vessels - have been effective, but the pirates "are not dead, but dormant now, so they will come definitely... straight away, no question about it [as soon as the warships leave]," said Puntland's Counter-Piracy Minister Abdalla Jama Saleh.
Puntland at a glance:
Find out more about Puntland
Four hours drive away from Eyl, in Puntland's capital, Garowe, a brand new prison is the most visible sign of the outside world's attempt to fight piracy ashore.
The UK is among a group of European nations that paid for its construction.
"It's already reduced piracy. It helped young people to see that other colleagues are in prison... for long, long sentences. It's a warning signal. And it is to rehabilitate inmates," said Abdirizak Jama, from the United Nation's Office on Drugs and Crime.
But although the prison looks clean and impressively secure - a particularly important advantage in a region where prisons raids and escapes are commonplace - the 17 convicted pirates I saw all appeared to be "foot soldiers" rather than pirate leaders.
"I do not deserve to be here," said 20-year-old Yusuf Galgal, who'd been caught at sea and put on trial in the Seychelles. "I was underage when I was sentenced."
The cells also contained a number of convicted members of the militant group al-Shabab, including Aweil Ali Farah, 27, who was sentenced to death.
"I was a school teacher. Someone had a grudge against me and told the police. I'm not in al-Shabab. They're terrorists, fundamentalists, Islamists. I'm waiting for the death penalty. I'm worried," he said, showing where he'd written: "There is no justice here," on his red prison uniform.
In his heavily guarded compound on a nearby hilltop, Puntland's President Abdiweli Ali Gaas urged the international community to do much more, both onshore and at sea.
Accusing the west of "double standards," the president said foreign navies were only concerned about stopping Somali piracy - which more or less halted in 2012 - and were doing nothing to tackle the "highway robbery" of foreign fishing trawlers [largely Iranian] plundering Somalia's natural resources.
"This may rekindle the issue of piracy," President Abdiweli warned.
But the issue is complicated. After decades of internal conflict, Somalia is still struggling to negotiate the terms of its reintegration as a nation-state.
Different administrations have been issuing fishing licenses, and while Puntland believes it is currently being cheated of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, there are deep concerns about corruption.
"There's uncertainty between the federal government [of Somalia] and regions [like Puntland] for fishing companies regarding the validity of licenses and who to buy from," said Alan Cole, who heads the UNODC's anti-piracy programme in East Africa.
Puntland now has its own well-trained Maritime Police Force, funded by the UAE. But it is far too small to patrol even a portion of Somalia's coastline - the longest on the continent.
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As the route is announced for the Yorkshire section of next year's Tour de France, a keen amateur cyclist from the county gives a first-hand account of what it is like to take on cycling's greatest challenge. | By Trevor GibbonsBBC News, Yorkshire
"On a descent I have shot past a couple of riders lying bloodied in the gutter and the crashes looked really nasty but at almost 50mph I couldn't stop."
Neil Sutcliffe, 49, has twice ridden his bike for a day's cycling along the same route the professionals tackle in the Tour de France.
L'Étape du Tour, as it is called, is a chance for thousands of cyclists to pit themselves for a day against the same lung-busting mountainous terrain of the tour as ridden by champions like Bradley Wiggins.
Of course cyclists like Sutcliffe are not doing it for money - and he has to bear that in mind on the mountain descents.
'Tyres could explode'
"I don't go hell for leather... I want to get down in one piece," he said
"Some tour descents last 30 minutes and you can't go down with the cycle's brakes full on as the wheel rims would heat up and the tyres could explode," Sutcliffe explained.
He rode L'Etape in 2003 and 2004. The second time he cycled from Limoges to St Flour, a distance of 148 miles (237km), the longest stage in that year's tour.
Sutcliffe said: "I got up nice and early at 5am and tried to stuff my face full of food.
"You need thousands of calories because you know it's going to be a tough day."
And the pressure is on because following the riders will be the dreaded "broom wagon" whose job is to sweep up those who cannot keep the pace.
Tactics also play a part in the day's riding.
Filthy looks
Sutcliffe explained: "By riding in a group you can get the benefits of drafting and share the workload. It makes it easier to get through the day."
The pack of riders, known as the peloton, take advantage of aerodynamics. If you can tuck in behind the rider in front you can gain an advantage.
Although Sutcliffe says there is a price to pay: "You've got to do your time at the front. Nobody likes a wheel-sucker."
That is the pack's name for a selfish rider sitting at the back who doesn't do his or her share of the work. Anyone trying to dodge their share will get filthy looks from the rest of the peloton.
If a rider does not eat plenty of food at breakfast and at the food stations along the route they will sometimes "bonk" - a cyclist's way of describing going through a rough patch.
To keep himself going through these periods, Sutcliffe falls back on his own internal sound system.
"It's murder sometimes on the climbs but you've just got to keep going.
'Dead man's click'
"I don't like to stop so you just dig in and I've often got a tune going round in my head, usually by the Jam, and often their song Private Hell."
Sometimes when climbing there is a far less welcome sound as Sutcliffe hears what he describes as the "dead man's click".
It is his name for clicking the gears on his handlebar and realising there are no more gears to help as he is already in the lowest gear possible.
"You've just got to go with what you've got."
There is a real sense of occasion when L'Étape passes by; local villagers come out and encourage the cyclists with cries of "allez, allez!"
The support of thousands of spectators at the finish was almost too much for Sutcliffe.
He recalled: "I managed a sprint finish with the adrenalin flowing.
"It was emotional and I cried after the finish, I can't really explain it," he said.
The experience provided an insight into the tour for Sutcliffe and one fact made a huge impression on him.
"In the tour the pros get back in the saddle the next day and do it all again."
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The remains of a Brutalist bus station that dominated the Northampton skyline for nearly four decades are to be recycled at the town centre site. | Dubbed the "mouth of hell", the building was reduced to about 22,000 tonnes of rubble using more than 2,000 individual explosive charges in March.
Contractors are anticipating recycling about 97% of the materials, a borough council spokesman said.
Stone, concrete and bricks will now be re-used on the site as hard-standing.
The materials will be "crushed and processed on the site" as part of the demolition, which has cost upwards of £4m, the council said.
Excess material will be removed from site and re-used within the construction industry for applications such as hard-standings, paths and roads.
The site is due to be cleared and levelled at the end of July. It is being considered for retail and leisure schemes.
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Seven years ago Isabelle Dinoire became the first-ever person to have a face transplant. In a rare interview, she describes how she copes with the stares, and her yearning to meet the family of the woman whose face became her own. | By Mike LanchinBBC World Service, Amiens
"The most difficult thing is to find myself again, as the person I was, with the face I had before the accident. But I know that's not possible," says the 45-year-old mother of two from northern France.
"When I look in the mirror, I see a mixture of the two [of us]. The donor is always with me."
After a moment, she adds: "She saved my life."
Dinoire regularly turns down media requests and rarely agrees to be photographed. She comes across as relaxed and self-assured, but her traumatic ordeal has left its mark, physically and mentally.
She still has a visible scar running from above her nose to down under her chin where specialist doctors at Amiens University Hospital in northern France, spent 15 hours sewing the donor's face on to hers. One of her eyes is slightly drooping.
Speaking with a slight impediment - and with almost alarming simplicity - she recounts how, in a fit of depression in May 2005, she took an overdose of sleeping pills in an attempt to end her life.
She awoke to find herself at home, lying beside a pool of blood, with her pet Labrador at her side. The dog had apparently found her unconscious, and desperate to rouse her, had gnawed away at her face.
"I couldn't even begin to imagine it was my face or my blood - or that the dog had chewed my face," she says.
The injuries to her mouth, nose and chin were so extreme that doctors immediately ruled out a routine face reconstruction. Instead they proposed a ground-breaking face transplant.
"From the first time I saw myself in the mirror after the operation I knew it was a victory. It didn't look that good because of all the bandages, but I had a nose, I had a mouth - it was fantastic," she says. "I could see in the eyes of the nurses that it was a success."
Unable to speak properly due to a tracheotomy done for the operation, all she could murmur was a simple, "Thank you."
Dinoire's delight at her new face, however, quickly turned sour. She was completely unprepared for the attention her case brought her.
Pursued by the media, harassed by passers-by and curious onlookers, Dinoire spent months after the operation hidden away at home, not daring to venture out.
"It was excruciating. I live in a small town and so everyone knew my story. It wasn't easy at the beginning. Children would laugh at me and everyone would say, 'Look it's her, it's her.'" She felt like "a circus animal".
Nowadays, people still recognise her around town, but the attention is "not as brutal" as before, she says.
"With time I have got used to my own face. This is what I look like, what I am like, who I am. If people stare at me insistently, I don't care any more, I just stare back!" she says, with a hint of a smile.
But has her personality changed as well as her outward appearance? "No" she replies quickly, "I am the same, just with a different face."
According to Prof Sylvie Testelin, one of the team that operated on Dinoire in Amiens, not every patient with severe facial injuries can be offered the chance of a transplant.
In 2005 no-one was really sure of the long-term effects on patients of taking a cocktail of drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent their body rejecting the new tissue.
But in the case of Dinoire - and the two other people in France who have had successful transplants since then - the benefits have far outweighed the risks.
"Nobody can imagine what it's like to live without a face. She [Isabelle] can. But we must be sure it is right for the patient," says Testelin.
Worldwide there have been a dozen or so successful operations - in the US, Spain, Turkey and China. "You cannot imagine the number of people who have wanted transplants, but it's not a game or a race to do more and more," she says.
One day Dinoire will have to face up to the possibility of a major rejection by her body, says Testelin. As her doctor, she too has to be prepared for this - though she hopes that day never comes.
Dinoire is more sanguine about her future. "I tell myself it will be all right. If I take my drugs everything should go well," she says.
She spends her days visiting a few close friends and walking her new pet dog - she was devastated that the Labrador she had in 2005 was put down.
Still prone to bouts of depression, she says she constantly thinks about the dead woman whose face she was given. Right after the operation she would surf the internet in search of details of the anonymous donor - whose identity French law will never allow her to know.
"When I feel down, or depressed, I look at myself in the mirror again and think of her. And I tell myself, I'm not allowed to give up. She gives me hope."
One day Dinoire would even like to be able to meet the woman's family, to thank them for what she describes as their "magical donation".
Mike Lanchin's interview with Isabelle Dinoire was broadcast on the BBC World Service's Witness programme. You can download a podcast of the programme or browse the archive.
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook
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A £60m plan to move Reading Borough Council's offices from its current home in the Civic Centre to Plaza West in Bridge Street has been approved.
| Shopkeepers near the Civic Centre had expressed concern that the move would result in a loss of trade.
The council, which approved the plan on Tuesday, said it would oversee the regeneration of the civic area.
A public consultation is under way for ideas to regenerate the area once the council moves next year.
The leader of the Lib Dems in Reading, Daisy Benson, supported the move to Plaza West.
But she said: "... The council must not sign a blank cheque. With public finances under huge pressure at the moment in Reading the council needs to keep a tight rein on costs for the civic relocation project to ensure that an extra burden is not placed on local taxpayers."
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Ghana's chief imam is a man of few words, but the 100-year-old Muslim cleric certainly knows how to make waves - by attending a Catholic Church service as part of his birthday celebrations. | By Favour NunooBBC Pidgin, Accra
Pictures of Sheikh Osman Sharubutu, sitting attentively in the pews of Accra's Christ the King Catholic Church for an Easter service, went viral on social media.
The grand mufti, leader of Ghana's minority Muslim community, wants to ensure that his legacy is peace - the fruit of inter-faith harmony.
His church attendance was given even more resonance as on the day he was being pictured alongside parish priest Father Andrew Campbell, Islamist suicide bombers unleashed attacks in Sri Lanka, killing more than 250 people at churches and hotels.
Those on social media championing the imam's approach described him as a light shining in the darkness.
Not everyone was happy - some critics condemned his actions as an abomination, for a Muslim to participate in Christian worship. But Sheikh Sharubutu insisted he was not worshipping but moving the relationship between Muslims and Christians from mere tolerance to engagement.
"The chief imam is changing the narrative about Islam from a religion of wickedness, a religion of conflict, a religion of hate for others, to a religion whose mission is rooted in the virtues of love, peace and forgiveness," his spokesperson Aremeyao Shaibu told the BBC.
The priest who befriended an imam
By Elizabeth Ohene, Accra
Unlike Ghana's chief imam, Father Andrew Campbell, the parish priest of Christ the King Catholic Church, is certainly not a man of few words and it is fair to say he likes to stir things up a bit.
The 73-year-old was born in Ireland and arrived in Ghana in 1971 to work as a missionary. Over 48 years he has become a champion of unpopular and unfashionable causes. He has adopted the cause of lepers in particular and campaigns for them not to be stigmatised and to be treated with dignity.
His church is situated across the road from Jubilee House, the seat of Ghana's presidency. A few months ago, he was made parish priest for Jubilee House. The cleric has stated his support for some government policies, but it is accepted he will be equally vocal when he feels the need to criticise, no matter that he might be designated the in-house priest for the presidency.
He has acquired full Ghanaian citizenship - however, he has refused to adopt some local habits. He insists on keeping to time.
Not too long ago, I attended a wedding ceremony and he started the service despite the absence of the bride. Half-way through the published programme, the bridal procession could be seen trying to make an entrance from the back door. Fr Campbell rushed down, leading the groom and stopped the bride in the middle of the aisle, where he conducted a hurried marriage ceremony and walked back to the altar to continued from where he had left off before the bride appeared.
But the combination of the peaceful Muslim cleric of few words and the trouble stirring loquacious Irish-Ghanaian priest make an unpredictable and beautiful cocktail.
Sheikh Sharubutu has been Ghana's top Muslim cleric for 26 years, and has always insisted the key tenets of Islam are rooted in peace and love, as his weekly sermons at Friday prayers at the Central Mosque in the capital attest.
Another favourite theme of his is a call to shun materialism, saying it only brings greed.
At his residence in the poor neighbourhood of Fadama, he has insisted that the gates remain open.
For years now, hundreds of township residents troop in each morning to fetch fresh water from taps at the property while others visit at night with bowls to be served hot meals for free.
It is the nature of Islamic leaders to give to charity, but his supporters say the scale of his work stands out. He has personally sponsored hundreds of students in their education at home and abroad and has also established an educational trust fund to support talented but needy pupils.
Ghana, where Muslims make up 18% of the population in the mainly Christian country, has no history of religious warfare. But relations can be fractious - and the imam has sought to douse any flare-ups.
He is a member of the National Peace Council, made up of 13 mainly religious leaders - but he is also known to intervene personally to resolve tensions.
Cemetery disputes
Earlier this year, he reprimanded a group of young Muslim men who attacked a church in Accra after its pastor predicted his death in the coming 12 months.
He told those who had been armed with machetes to forgive the preacher and managed to defuse the tension, something that earned him the thanks of the police chief.
When gunshots reverberated through the streets of Old Tafo in Kumasi in a row over a cemetery in 2016, he immediately made a trip to the Ashanti regional capital.
A curfew had been imposed after one person died in clashes. Traditional leaders wanted proof that the Muslim community owned a section of land in the graveyard to bury their dead.
The situation nearly degenerated into all-out war after rampaging Muslim youths slapped the traditional leader of the Tafo community.
The slapping of a chief constitutes a desecration of his office, a taboo in Ghana which requires war to be waged - something that could have spread to other communities.
According to Mr Shaibu, the chief imam went to the palace of the Tafo chief, and without even speaking a word, he calmed the situation by the humility and meekness of his presence, preventing further unrest.
It was the second time that he had interceded in a fallout over a cemetery.
In 2012, the corpse of an imam in the Volta Region was exhumed and dumped by the roadside by a community who felt Muslims should not bury their dead in that graveyard.
Sheikh Sharubutu flew into the south-eastern region and negotiated a peace deal - saving the state from using force to quell the riots.
'I read without gadgets'
He puts his peaceful philosophy down to his favourite Koranic verse, which says people should be fair with each other to help achieve a harmonious society: "Allah does not forbid you from showing kindness, and dealing justly with those who have not fought you about religion and have not driven you out of your homes. Allah loves just dealers."
As a young man, he made this the central message of his lessons as a Muslim teacher in Accra - going on to become one of the country's most erudite Islamic scholars.
Sheikh Sharubutu's record at 100:
He then made history when he was appointed chief imam in 1993, at the age of 74, as until then Ghana had not had a national Muslim leader.
There is some trepidation about finding a successor who can follow in his footsteps, given that he has become so central to sustaining religious peace.
But his serene nature seems to be key to his continued longevity, something those who come after him may want to emulate.
"I am old, strong and vital. I can see, [am] able to read and write without the support of any gadgets. I am able to walk on my own - God has not tested me with weakness," his spokesman quoted him as saying.
"I am in perfect control of my mind, I have not grown senile. Placing God at the centre of my life gives me calmness and inner peace in life."
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"Running a small business is touch and go at the best of times," says Rachel Ho, director of an independent coffee shop in Tottenham, north London. And these, it seems fair to say, are far from the best of times. | By Hamish MackayBBC News
Ahead of warnings the UK's economy could shrink by 35%, the Treasury set aside billions to keep businesses afloat during the coronavirus lockdown.
But for many, access to that funding is proving too difficult or too slow - and fewer than 2% of the 300,000 inquiries to the government's loan scheme are thought to have reached fruition so far.
After being told she was not eligible for a grant because she pays business rates via her landlord, and after getting "nowhere" with her insurance claim, Ms Ho decided to set up a crowdfunding page for Craving Coffee, which she owns with her husband Matt.
Within 24 hours, they had raised two thirds of their £25,000 target.
The team at the coffee shop were "blown away", Ms Ho tells the BBC.
Without this money, which will go towards rent, loan repayments, suppliers and utility bills, the business was set to "go under", she says.
"We were prepared to go bankrupt. We knew the lockdown would outlast any reserves we had."
When the lockdown announcement came, they told their staff there were no more shifts and sold off as much stock as possible to recoup what they could.
"That was a very emotional and stressful day."
But in the end, Ms Ho says, it was the local community that saved them - with donations ranging from £5 to £1,000.
"Tottenham is really good like that. It's an area where people really get behind things," she says. "I'm not surprised by the passion but I'm a little bit overwhelmed by the amounts people have given."
And Craving Coffee is not the only business taking this approach.
US crowdfunding website GoFundMe says it has seen a 246% rise in British business campaigns compared with the same time last year, while UK-based Crowdfunder has also seen a spike, as well as a doubling of its daily website traffic.
It is important to note some crowdfunded businesses fail even in normal times, and for those investing money through crowdfunding, there is a risk of losing that money if the business goes under. However, those considering their contribution a donation may be less concerned about the risk.
One new scheme from Crowdfunder, to help those affected by the virus, encourages businesses to offer rewards - rather than equity - in exchange for donations.
At Craving Coffee, offerings ranged from drinks, food and clothing, to invitations to a reopening party.
And businesses using different platforms have taken a similar approach.
Ricky Fox runs a children's entertainment company in Uxbridge.
The business - Captain Fantastic - employed five full-time staff and 40 entertainers before coronavirus. It was putting on about 200 children's parties a month.
Social distancing changed that.
"People starting postponing their parties," he says. "We had 200 bookings a month, then it started to drop, then everyone started postponing, then they cancelled. We went down to zero."
It had taken 10 years for Mr Fox and co-founder Tommy Balaam to build up a business that ground to a halt in a matter of days.
They furloughed some staff, but that is where government support ended. The business operates from home offices, so they are not eligible for a grant, and both founders took dividends rather than salaries.
Realising they needed to offer something different, Mr Fox and Mr Balaam launched free online entertainment videos for children, and asked for donations in return via GoFundMe and PayPal.
More than 6,000 people tuned in to their first live video, and their followers on Facebook soon rose from 3,000 to more than 50,000.
Captain Fantastic now does 30 live sessions a week, with the donations split between the entertainers involved in each video.
"It's not much at all but it pays for the staff that are left and it gives our entertainers something to pay their rent with," says Mr Fox.
"It keeps us afloat and that is what we wanted. At the moment, we can survive."
The Treasury told the BBC that local authorities were working to ensure "eligible ratepayers" receive the grants they are entitled to, adding that those that are not entitled to grants can still receive "other measures".
But even those who are entitled to other support are struggling to access it, or finding it is not enough.
Dave Grant is the managing director of Fierce Beer, an Aberdeen-based craft brewery that has seen its sales drop by 75% due to the lockdown.
The company used the government furlough scheme for some of its staff and got business rate relief - but still needed cash to survive.
Mr Grant applied for one of the government-backed loans announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak last month - but was turned down by the bank after being told his company was "not a viable business".
In the end, he turned to crowdfunding, offering people a 50% return on their pledge - "Spend 50 quid to get 75 quid's worth of beer... it's easy for people to recognise what they're going to get."
Fierce Beer raised £156,000 in a day.
"We couldn't honestly believe it," says Mr Grant. "We were constantly refreshing the total and it was unbelievable. It was so nice to think so many people wanted to help us out."
So what is it that inspires such generosity, is it simply the promise of free goods or services?
"I think people are starting to realise that we're going to have to work together to get through this," says Ms Ho.
"I think everyone's feeling so helpless, they just want to help where they can... and they want the business to be here when they get back."
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On setting up the NHS, its founder Nye Bevan is reported to have said if a bedpan was dropped on a ward of a hospital, the noise would reverberate all the way to the corridors of power in Westminster. | Nick TriggleHealth correspondent
That may be so, but the level of control and secrecy in the NHS means the clanging sound is muffled from the public.
Ministers talk a lot about making the NHS transparent and open.
But it appears nothing could be further from the truth - as the debate over gagging orders prompted by the Gary Walker case demonstrates.
Mr Walker has told the BBC he had no choice but to sign an agreement linked to a confidentiality clause in April 2011 after being sacked as chief executive of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust
This issue is nothing new. It has been going on for years.
In 1998, the government of the day tried to stamp it out through the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
It is known as the UK's whistle-blowing law as it gives employees protection if they raise concerns.
'Isolated and fearful'
But as the years have gone by it has become apparent that within the health service it has not quite had the intended effect as the culture of secrecy has continued.
Staff who worked at Stafford Hospital, the trust at the centre of the scandal subject to a public inquiry, have complained of being bullied and silenced after trying to raise the alarm.
Another high-profile case involved the nurse, Margaret Haywood, who was struck off in 2009, after filming examples of neglect at Brighton's Royal Sussex Hospital for a BBC Panorama programme.
She too complained of a lack of support from bosses.
Evidence from the British Medical Journal from 2010 showed that while most trusts do have whistle-blowing policies, many were written in a way that did not do enough to encourage staff to come forward.
Some stressed the threat of disciplinary action, while others did not even mention that staff would be protected if they came forward.
On top of that there is the issue of gagging clauses. By their very nature it is impossible to know just how many are in place.
British Medical Association leader Dr Mark Porter says part of the problem is that while the law is clear, in practice people can feel isolated and fearful.
"Lawyers may be involved and they are facing this big organisation and feel they can't speak out. We have to change that."
Stephen Dorrell, a former health secretary and the current chairman of the House of Commons' Health Select Committee, agrees there is a "core problem" which shows the "culture of the health service is wrong".
To be fair, the Department of Health has attempted to counter such secrecy.
Just over a year ago a free helpline for whistleblowers was launched, while the need for staff to report concerns and employers to act on them was written into the NHS Constitution.
And, of course, last week the public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital failings recommended a duty of candour to get staff to be open about mistakes, while with-holding information from regulators should become a criminal offence.
But it goes much wider than this.
Many compare the openness - or lack of it - in the NHS with what happens in local government.
The power devolved to councils and the presence of councillors willing to talk out means much more uncomfortable information tends to leak out of the system.
Over the years ministers have often talked about making the NHS more transparent by publishing more and more information.
And, yes, a whole mountain of statistics are now published on the NHS each month from waiting times to how many patients are kept on mixed-sex wards.
But the complex nature of the NHS means only half the picture emerges.
For example, while each hospital submits how it is doing against the four-hour A&E target that masks what is happening around the emergency department.
Ambulances can be queuing outside and delays can be experienced once a patient is admitted into the hospital. But none of this is properly reflected in the official statistics.
All this helps create a system that encourages silence rather than noise.
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Richard Leonard's leadership of Scottish Labour was not working. | By Glenn CampbellPolitical Editor, BBC Scotland
The party went backwards in national elections on his watch, losing both its Scottish seats in the last European elections and all but one of its Scottish MPs in the 2019 UK general election.
After three years in charge, he did not appear to be widely known or appreciated by the public according to opinion polls.
The same surveys have tended to suggest Labour - once the dominant force in Scottish politics - continues to trail the Conservatives in third place.
That his supporters say internal party critics have constantly undermined his leadership does not change the party's standing.
There was a glimmer of hope for them this week when a Sevanta/Comres poll of more than 1,000 adults for the Scotsman suggested Labour could be on 18% support in Holyrood constituency voting intentions, just one point behind the Tories.
That came too late.
According to Mr Leonard himself, continuing speculation about his leadership had become a "distraction" and after careful consideration over Christmas he decided to step down.
That struck me as odd because this is the same Richard Leonard who has until now doggedly resisted all attempts to oust him.
'Reluctant to get involved'
When several of his own MSPs called on him to quit four months ago he stood firm and insisted he would lead the party into the Holyrood elections due in May.
Some of his critics had come to accept that he was staying put. Others hoped for an intervention by the UK leader, Sir Keir Starmer.
While I am told by one Labour source that Sir Keir was very reluctant to get involved in the Scottish party leadership, another said he had "showed real steel" this week in effecting change.
I am told he spoke with Richard Leonard earlier this week. The Times reports that Sir Keir told Mr Leonard he no longer had confidence in him. The UK party leader's office has declined to comment.
What we do know is that Richard Leonard remains his party's lead candidate for the Scottish Parliament on the Central Scotland list, which almost guarantees his return to Holyrood.
Two sources have told me that was part of an agreement reached with the help of trade unions including Mr Leonard's own - the GMB - to allow him a "dignified" departure from the leadership.
A source close to Mr Leonard said that was "not accurate" without issuing a complete denial.
The former Labour MP Gemma Doyle said any such deal "reeks of elite privilege" and could be challenged by the Scottish party's ruling body.
'Likely frontrunner'
That the UK party was frustrated with Scottish Labour's performance, upon which their own ambitions to form a UK government depend, is not in doubt.
At Westminster, some were particularly unimpressed when the Scottish party released a statement in Richard Leonard's name which appeared to undermine Sir Keir's decision to support the post-Brexit trade deal.
On that occasion, Anas Sarwar - the party's constitution spokesperson - issued a clarification.
He is now considered a likely frontrunner in any contest to succeed Mr Leonard, having lost out to him last time, when Mr Leonard's ally Jeremy Corbyn was the UK party leader.
Both Mr Sarwar and the party's health spokesperson, Monica Lennon, are understood to be considering standing.
Ms Lennon told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme that she had been having discussions with colleagues but was "ruling nothing in and ruling nothing out" at this stage.
There is not an obvious candidate from the Campaign for Socialism group of MSPs at Holyrood.
Jeremy Corbyn's former political secretary, Katy Clark, is seeking election to Holyrood but would be ineligible to stand, should she be interested, at this stage.
Any contest is likely to be swift given how close the Holyrood elections are.
The new leader will have very little time to turn the party's fortunes around and their success or lack of it could have a bearing on the future of the UK.
There are Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians who think a stronger Labour party is essential, if the SNP and its plans for another independence referendum are to be effectively countered.
As for Mr Leonard, he can justifiably take some credit for persuading the Scottish government to back Labour's policy of a national care service.
He may also take some comfort from knowing that even some of his harshest critics, within and beyond Scottish Labour, do not dislike him personally.
However much they disagree with his politics, they tend to respect him for approaching his work with a decency that is not universal among those we elect.
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Parasite, last year's Oscar winner from South Korea, dented assumptions that English-speaking audiences are wary of any film with subtitles. Now another Korean-language film is making waves. Minari is a very different story set in rural America. But there's buzz about its chances in April's Academy Awards. | By Vincent DowdArts correspondent
Minari is Lee Isaac Chung's fourth feature film. For the first time, he's tried to capture on screen the lives of South Koreans in the US.
Chung is 42 and was born into a Korean family in Denver, Colorado. While he was editing his film, he says he was very aware of the acclaim building around the dark comedy Parasite. Bong Joon-ho's film went on to win four Oscars last year, including best picture. It's taken more than $250m (£177m) at the box office.
"Obviously I wanted to see this subtitled South Korean movie everyone was talking about," he remembers. "But I decided I'd resist until Minari was edited: I didn't want it to influence me at all.
"When I finally watched Parasite, I asked myself how I could ever make anything so good. So it was both encouraging and discouraging at the same time."
In fact, Minari has had excellent reviews since opening last year at the Sundance festival. Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson said the film "is one of the highlights of the season". Robbie Collin of The Telegraph described it as a "finely-observed portrait of family relations and rural American values".
Minari's warm story of the Yi family moving in the 1980s from California to Arkansas is utterly unlike Parasite's sharp social satire.
The father, Jacob, plans a better living for his wife and two young children farming Korean vegetables and selling them to wholesalers and restaurants. His wife Monica is less convinced and eventually they bring her eccentric mother over from South Korea to help look after the farm and the children.
It's an engaging and at times moving blend of family drama and comedy. There are moments when it seems tragedy may strike... so will Jacob's faith in the American Dream prove misplaced?
A lot of detail came from Chung's own family background.
"We lived on a farm and our grandmother was with us. As in the film, it was her decision to grow minari down by a stream - a vegetable you'll find in many Asian countries. The truth is, when I was five or six, I really didn't like eating it but it's a hardy crop which can flourish where other things won't grow.
"So although mainly I associate minari with my love for my grandmother and her wisdom, there's maybe also a metaphor about thriving in a new home.
"The process of writing the film made me understand my father a lot better and the stresses he was working through at the time I was growing up."
Chung graduated with a biology degree and had planned to become a doctor. But in his final year at Yale he decided to become a film-maker.
"My parents were very surprised and worried for me and my welfare. They thought I was making a huge mistake after college but within a few years they'd become more supportive of what I was doing. But I had such a visceral need to make films that ultimately the important thing was not if they approved. I knew I just had to do it."
Minari looks great on screen. Like another of this year's leading Oscar contenders, Nomadland, it draws strength and beauty from the landscape of America.
Chung says Hollywood films which influenced him included John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and movies of the 1950s and early '60s from the likes of Elia Kazan, William Wyler and George Stevens.
"Those directors made films about the land and about exploring frontiers and working out your hopes and dreams in America."
He and the producers discussed trying to emulate the CinemaScope look of some of those movies. But they decided it wouldn't work, as too many scenes were to be shot in the family's small trailer home.
The dialogue is mainly in Korean and, while making it, Chung could never have guessed how successful Parasite was about to become. So did he ever consider making more of the film in English to dodge the subtitling issue?
He says there was always a second version of the screenplay standing by, just in case, and mainly in English. "Honestly that was for if I just couldn't get financing for a Korean-language film set in Arkansas. I did have those thoughts.
"But it's better to remain true to the movie and to people's lives. In most Korean-American families at that time people would definitely have spoken Korean at home."
The crucial moment came when the production company Plan B (co-owned by Brad Pitt) entered the scene. "They were all great and from the beginning Plan B just said go ahead make the movie as you see it. The producer there Christina Oh is also Korean American and she really fought to ensure we had the ability to shoot in Korean."
There's been criticism that this year's Golden Globes wouldn't consider Minari in the best drama film category because the dialogue isn't primarily in English. The film was nominated for best foreign language film.
Chung won't be drawn into the specifics of the debate. "But what would happen, for instance, if someone made a film set in the US and it was mainly in Native American languages? Would that count at the Globes as a foreign film?"
The Globes take place this Sunday. The Academy Awards have no equivalent restriction. Oscar nominations will be announced on 15 March.
Suddenly Chung is hot property in Hollywood.
His next film is to be a love story set between America and Hong Kong. Does he think the way different races and traditions and cultures negotiate their differences and explore a common past will become a staple of post-pandemic cinema?
"I admire the writers and thinkers who feel like you can't really go forward unless you're also going backwards at the same time.
"You can't move into the future without contending with what's happened before. You have to make sure we unearth every part of history if you really really want to become something better in the future. That's a process we have to be faithful towards - to mine that history and set things right."
Minari is released in the UK and Ireland on 19 March by Altitude Film.
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"We're moving from a mobile first to an AI-first world." That was how Google's boss, Sundar Pichai, began a presentation on Tuesday, at which his company unveiled a range of new hardware products. | Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter
He believes that the key attraction of both the new Pixel smartphones and the Google Home smart speaker is the company's expertise in artificial intelligence as demonstrated by the Google Assistant.
The search company believes that the vast amount of data it has collected over the years, coupled with its expertise in machine learning, will give it a head start in the coming AI battle.
The company hopes that Google Assistant, a conversational chatbot or virtual PA, will soon be a key feature on all sorts of Android devices, not just those it makes itself.
If Mr Pichai has his way, we will soon be shouting: "OK Google," to get all sorts of information and services.
But on Thursday came news that showed that the biggest player on Android may not be so keen on that idea.
Samsung has announced that it is buying Viv, an artificial intelligence company started by the same people who created the virtual assistant Siri, and then sold it to Apple.
Viv, according to Samsung, is "a unique, open artificial intelligence platform that gives third-party developers the power to use and build conversational assistants and integrate a natural language-based interface into renowned applications and services".
That appears to be a pretty good description of what Google is doing with its AI.
But it sounds as though Samsung may decide that Viv will be a key differentiator on its Galaxy phones - and vast range of household appliances - as it battles to retain its position at the top end of the Android market in competition with the Google Pixel.
And other technology giants are flexing their own AI muscles.
Apple of course has Siri, Microsoft has Cortana, and IBM's Watson has been around for a while and is beginning to make its presence felt in a number of commercial applications.
We also learned on Thursday UK lenders Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest would use chatbots based on Watson to answer simple customer queries.
Then there is Alexa, the AI at the heart of Amazon's voice-controlled Echo speaker.
Amazon has opened up the Alexa platform to outside developers, and there are already a few Alexa-powered devices out there in the market.
The Echo is in only a few million homes so far, but talking to her (it?) is already proving a compelling example of the promise - and current limitations - of an AI conversational program.
Alexa is pretty good at understanding what you are saying, but not so smart at dealing with follow-up questions.
And this is where Google believes its AI has an edge, saying its Assistant has contextual awareness that allows it to carry on a conversation beyond an initial question.
The company gives as an example the query: "Who is the current British prime minister?"
Try this out with Google, Alexa and Apple's Siri, and all three will produce the answer: "Theresa May".
But follow up with: "How old is she?" and Siri says: "I'm afraid I couldn't find anything on 'How old is she?'" while Alexa tells you she does not understand the question.
But the Google Assistant knows you are referring to Mrs May and comes back with: "Theresa May is 60 years old."
Of course, we are at the very early stages of this revolution, and much may change as each AI learns by doing.
What is more, none of them has yet convinced a significant number of people that conversing with a smart device is something really useful rather than a bit of fun, which you try and then forget.
Both Amazon and Google are betting that this moment comes when we walk through the front door and say: "OK Google, turn on the lights," or: "Alexa, turn up the heat in the hallway."
Now we know that Samsung and perhaps IBM's Watson may also be competing to give us similarly compelling AI experiences.
The mystery is what Apple is up to.
Siri first came to the iPhone five years ago, providing the first experience of a virtual assistant for many.
Since then, while the program has appeared on more Apple devices, and is now on its desktop Macs, it has failed to define this new category.
Where is the Siri speaker or Siri car?
You can be certain that hundreds, perhaps thousands of artificial intelligence experts are at work in Cupertino.
But exactly what ambition Apple has to be a key player in the AI future remains unclear.
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A pop-up museum in a shopping centre, exhibit boxes that are sent to schools by post and actor-guides who control social distancing - these are among the schemes that have received funding to help museums during the pandemic. | Eighteen museums around the UK will share £630,000 to help them find new and safe ways of reaching the public.
The Art Fund said it had been inundated by museums and galleries "whose funding models have been shattered by this crisis". The charity will award a further £900,000 at a later date.
3D printing for artefacts
The first institutions to have received money include the Wycombe Museum in Buckinghamshire, which has been awarded £35,000 to take "the museum to the town's main shopping centre".
The Florence Nightingale Museum in London will spend £46,000 to employ actors as guides to marshal social distancing while also "immersing visitors in the nurse's world and legacy".
The National Civil War Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire, will use £40,000 to adapt its education programme, including sending objects in loan boxes and allowing artefacts to be 3D printed.
A number of venues, including Aerospace Bristol, the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield and the Novium Museum in Chichester will spend grants on making their collections accessible online.
Others will use theirs on safety measures. The National Glass Centre in Sunderland will put £40,000 toward adapting its glassmaking demonstrations to be safe for visitors.
With its £25,000, The Box in Plymouth will buy styluses so people do not have to touch digital exhibits with their fingers.
Some, like the Ceredigion Museum in Aberystwyth and the Side Gallery in Newcastle, will use the money for projects to record the pandemic and the impact it has had on their communities.
Other venues to have received funding include Dundee Contemporary Arts, the Void Arts Centre in Derry/Londonderry and the Jaywick Martello Tower in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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The new head of the Nordic peace monitors in Sri Lanka says the country is facing a dramatic and deteriorating humanitarian crisis caused by the worst violence since the ceasefire was agreed four years ago. | The head of the mission, Major-General Lars Johan Sølvberg, said the nature of the violence by both the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels was shocking, and urged both parties to return to peace talks.
The two sides have said they want to negotiate, but many doubt whether their willingness is sincere.
BBC correspondent in Colombo, Dumeetha Luthra, says in recent months both sides have been breaking the ceasefire to such an extent that it only seems to be a document on paper rather than a reality on the ground.
The monitoring mission has halved in size since the Tamil Tigers demanded that any individuals from European Union countries must leave following the EU's listing of the rebels as a terrorist organisation.
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Politicians like nothing more than to confound pundits. | Mark DevenportPolitical editor, Northern Ireland@markdevenporton Twitter
So, I detected a sense of satisfaction on the part of First Minister Peter Robinson as he told reporters that, far from being a shouting match like the executive's heated meeting in May, the ministers' discussion of Ardoyne and other recent parades decisions had been calm and measured.
That said, we are still in the dark over the promised unionist "graduated response" to the Parades Commission determination in north Belfast.
Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd said his understanding is that unionist ministers intend to continue to participate in future executive meetings, but Mr Robinson would not give any such guarantee.
The parties agreed a two-line statement agreeing that all parades and parade-related protests should be lawful and acknowledging the efforts made by many to ensure the summer is peaceful.
The terse nature of the latest statement contrasts with the comprehensive five paragraph communique they published at this stage last year.
It is also much shorter than a draft the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, circulated amongst ministers late last month.
As a hack, I'm in favour of brevity.
In this case, though, it doesn't appear to be "the soul of wit", more an indication of the difficulty our ministers have in agreeing anything more substantial when it comes to parades.
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A council is being asked to confirm its plans for a £44m flood scheme to protect more than 900 properties. | It could allow the project in Hawick to be completed by 2022.
The town has suffered repeated problems resulting in the multi-million pound plans being drawn up to try to tackle the situation in the long term.
Scottish Borders Council has been advised to make a final decision to confirm its plans this week in order for the project to proceed.
A report has concluded that with no objections from people in areas affected by flooding or by the work there is no need to refer the scheme to Scottish ministers.
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This table lists the 202 primary schools with the lowest Sats results in England in 2012.
| At these schools 49% or fewerYear 6 children achieved Level 4 in English and maths.
The average point score - the average number of points per pupil in the tests - is used as a tie break.
The list does not include schools with fewer than six pupils.
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Burgers used to be fast and cheap - the epitome of fast food. But now a different type of patty exported from the US is rapidly expanding across the globe. What's driving the rise of the so called "better burger"? | By Katie HopeBusiness reporter, BBC News
"What's fascinating", observes Paul Reynish, chief executive of US burger chain Five Guys International, is "the complete fundamental change" that has taken place with people prepared to pay more and wait longer for a more upmarket burger.
We're speaking via phone whilst he's in the firm's Belfast restaurant, doing what he calls "product calibration" - where the firm tries to match US ingredients not available or allowed under EU laws with local alternatives.
Making sure its overseas burgers taste the same as those in the US is important, he says.
"Unless you have consistency there is no brand... you've got to have some confidence that the burger you have in Dubai and Paris is the same as the one you have in California and Miami," he says.
This is still a fairly new experience for the firm, which opened its first restaurant outside the US just four years ago.
The family controlled firm, started by husband and wife team Jerry and Janie Murrell and their five sons in 1986, is one of the biggest operators in the so called "better burger" market.
This is where the cheap fast food staple morphs into the world of cooked-to-order, brioche buns, grass fed cattle and triple cooked chips.
A level up from the fast food chains such as McDonald's and Burger King and two to three times more expensive, these types of burger bars still tend to be cheaper and more relaxed than a restaurant meal.
In a world where prices are rising faster than pay, it's an affordable indulgence. Yes it's a treat but not one that'll put too much of a dent in your bank balance. So called millennials, the generation that came of age after the 2008 financial crisis, are their core customers.
The trend of diners wanting to know where their food comes from, how it was prepared, and the "story" behind it has also helped drive the better burger's rapid expansion.
Five Guys, for example, boasts of 120-day grain-finished beef from family-owned farms in Ireland. Less than 1% of all UK beef qualifies, it says.
"Burgers, fries, shakes and Coke it's a pretty simple model," says Mr Reynish.
Nonetheless, it's a profitable market, worth some £3.3bn in the UK last year, according to market research firm Mintel.
The US and the UK aren't the only ones with an appetite for a more upmarket burger. Five Guys is currently in nine countries, but expects to expand to 28 over the next five years.
It's not to everyone's taste.
"Overpriced, overrated and over here," is one disgruntled Trip Advisor reviewer's verdict on the explosion of higher end US burger places in the UK.
Yet Mr Reynish says it was demands from visitors to the US desperate to experience the burgers in their home countries that drove their decision to expand.
In contrast to Five Guys, US rival Shake Shack wasn't even a chain when it decided to take its concept overseas.
"Quite honestly it's serendipitous we're even talking now...Shake Shack was totally an accident," laughs Michael Kark.
As vice president of Shake Shack's licensed business, he is the man in charge of the firm's international expansion.
The firm's taken an unusual approach to expansion, opening restaurants overseas before it was an established presence in its home country.
Less than a decade ago the firm was a temporary stand in a New York park with queues so long that one fan set up a webcam so people could see at a glance just how long they'd have to wait.
It was after the firm, founded by restaurateur Danny Meyer, opened its second restaurant, that Kuwaiti firm Alshaya approached them about opening a franchise.
"Kuwait isn't top of most brands' lists", admits Mr Kark. But for the firm which was then "really really tiny", it turned out to be a massive opportunity.
They agreed a licensing deal whereby Shake Shack took a one-off fee plus a percentage of sales. It's a model the firm has stuck to for all its overseas restaurants.
The experience helped its success: "As a company we were really great at creating one off concepts but we had no experience about duplication," says Mr Kark.
But why on earth did Alshaya choose Shake Shack?
Mr Kark says when he asked him, the group's founder said it was the really long queues.
"We'd gained this enormous cult following and that's how he found us."
Burger bars often inspire a cult-like following.
UK burger firm Meat Liquor began as irregular gatherings called #Meateasy advertised on Twitter. At that stage there was no restaurant, website or permanent venue, but just a hashtag and a burger van dubbed the "meatwagon".
Nonetheless, people would trek to south London and queue for two hours just to get a taste of their particular take on classic American diner food. It wasn't just the food, but the atmosphere that lured customers. With violently loud music and dark graffiti-adorned walls, the venues are more like a nightclub than a restaurant.
The first meatwagon was vandalised and the second was stolen. Founder Yianni Papoutsis, who was juggling the ad hoc stall with his job as a technician for the English National Ballet, eventually teamed up with pub owner Scott Collins to find a restaurant in 2010.
Now the pair have 13 sites and expect to make £17m in sales this year. "It's more like luck than judgement," says Mr Collins.
More stories from the BBC's global trade series looking at trade from an international perspective:
What it takes to get Beyonce on a world tour
The country losing out in the breakfast juice battle
Why a $1.6bn car plant has been left to decay
'You don't have to be a squillionaire to buy art'
How Scottish salmon conquered the world
Read more global trade series here.
But one thing hasn't changed. They still make customers seek them out. Their restaurants are often in sites other restaurants reject, tucked away in alleyways, or unusual places such as an ice rink or a box park made of shipping containers.
"Part of our USP is that we're hidden away," says Scott Collins. But for people fed up with queuing it now lets customers reserve tables.
He says there's really nothing new about the gourmet burger craze which has long been a pub menu staple.
It's this very popularity which could eventually slow the sector's growing success. Mintel says the fact that there is so much competition, often in the exact same locations, means it's becoming harder for firms to attract customers.
Five Guys Mr Reynish isn't worried.
"We're just not seeing any reduction in demand or frequency. Our annual sales per store are going up not down," he says.
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Two boys, aged 15 and 16, have been charged with grievous bodily harm after an attack in St Albans in which a teenager was stabbed. | The 16-year-old victim was stabbed in the abdomen during a fight between two groups in Verulamium Park on 15 June.
The defendants, who were arrested last week, are due at St Albans youth court on Wednesday.
A third boy, 14, arrested in June, will appear at the city's Crown Court on Friday charged with attempted murder.
He has also been charged with possession of a bladed article.
The injured boy is now recovering at home, Hertfordshire Police confirmed.
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London rapper Wretch 32 leads the nominations for this year's Urban Music Awards with six nods, including for artist of the year. | He's also nominated for best single, best music video, best collaboration, best hip hop and best male artist.
In a statement he said: "This is amazing news. Thanks to all the fans who nominated me."
Jessie J and Example have also picked up four nominations for the awards ceremony in September.
Other artists also up for awards include JLS, Chipmunk, Chris Brown, Tinie Tempah, Nicki Minaj, Adele and Katy B.
The awards, which reward artists in 17 different categories, are decided by public votes.
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Big internet giants like Apple are going to extraordinary lengths to minimise their tax burden, and voters and politicians are understandably excited about it. But the puzzle for economists is not that big companies now pay so little tax - but why, in a global economy, they are still paying tax on their profits at all. | Stephanie FlandersFormer economics editor
When I was first studying economics 25 years ago, my teachers were all expecting corporate taxes to disappear.
In a global economy in which capital and companies could go wherever they wanted, the assumption was that there would be an international "race to the bottom" when it came to corporate tax rates. Governments would either have to spend less or jack up personal income or consumption taxes instead.
Looking at the tax planning exploits of Amazon, Google and the rest, you might say the prediction had come true.
Except, corporate tax revenues overall have not fallen sharply as the world has become more globally integrated, or more digitally connected; rather the opposite.
IMF economists looked at this recently. They found that globalisation had pushed down corporate tax rates quite dramatically in the UK and around the developed world. (Especially in the 1980s - think of the successive corporate tax cuts under Nigel Lawson).
The median corporate tax rate in the largest 19 OECD countries fell from 50% in 1982 to 34% by 2003. But the researchers do not find this translating into lower corporate revenues: "...in fact, for the US and all regions save for Sub-Saharan Africa, revenues have risen over time."
Economists might not be surprised by that in itself. If corporate tax rates start out high, tax experts would say that cutting the marginal rate doesn't need to cost the government revenue, if the government broadens the tax base at the same time by cutting loopholes and deductions.
In large parts of the world, a lower rate might also encourage more black market companies to join the legitimate economy and pay tax for the first time. All of those things would tend to push up revenues, even if rates are going down.
But you can't usually raise revenues by cutting the tax on corporate profits to zero. With all the competition out there, economists might still wonder why corporate profit taxes are still with us at all, let alone be raising roughly the same amount as they were in the 1960s.
A chart (on p28 of the report) shows how corporate revenues have varied internationally since 1980 as a share of GDP. Predictably, the number jumps around a lot; corporate profits swing about wildly, depending on the economy, and you'd expect corporate tax revenues to do the same.
But, as I said, the prediction, 20-30 years ago would have been that in a global economy, revenues would be jumping around a fast-declining trend. That is not the picture you see on the chart. Before the financial crisis, OECD countries were raising significantly more from companies as a share of GDP than they were 30 years earlier. The average corporate tax take was 3.8% of GDP in 2007, up from 2.6% in 1990 and 2.1% in 1975.
Of course, you'd expect the financial crisis to have cut revenues. But corporate tax revenues, on average, were still 2.9% of GDP in 2010 (which is the most recent year available). In that year the chancellor raised 3.1% of GDP from UK companies - compared with 3.5% in 1990 and 2.2% in 1975. In the US, the figure was 2.7%, compared with 3.5% and 1990 and 2.9% in 1975.
None of this makes the tax exploits or Apple and the others any less disturbing, for voters or governments. Even Google's Eric Schmidt seems to agree that global tax rules have not kept pace with the development of the digital economy and they need to be reformed.
Individual countries care how much money they get from Google, relative to their sales. In economic terms, the interesting question is whether they are paying less than the average overall. It is quite possible that high-tech companies pay less tax, as a share of their global revenues, than the global average. I have not been able to find any research on this, either way, but you can't help feeling there ought to be some.
In the meantime, economists will continue to be puzzled that governments are still able to raise as much money from companies as they do. And governments, for their part, might be somewhat relieved that all the talk of scams and mounting avoidance has yet to seriously damage their capacity to tax companies overall. But companies that choose not to send their profits into the outer atmosphere - or any other offshore location - will not find that reassuring at all.
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European Space Agency controllers will not give up on Philae. | Jonathan AmosScience correspondent@BBCAmoson Twitter
They will continue to listen for the little probe in the days ahead, hopeful that it will somehow become active again.
On each pass overhead, the Rosetta satellite will try to detect and lock on to any sort of blip being transmitted from below.
The mission has faced up to the odds before, and won. It bounced and probably scraped across the surface during its historic touchdown on Wednesday.
Philae survived all that. People will now want to believe it can hunker down in the darkness and ride out its present predicament.
It would be very useful to know where exactly the probe is right now on the surface of Comet 67P.
This would give controllers a better sense of whether it is ever likely to come back to life.
The robot's own pictures show it to be rammed up against walls that throw a deep shadow over its solar panels for most of 67P's 12-hour day.
But the conditions that currently prevent Philae from charging its batteries could change.
It is not inconceivable that as the comet moves in closer to the Sun, the amount of light made available to the probe will increase, in amount and in intensity.
There could be structural changes on the comet, too. Obstructions that look hard and imposing today could crumble in time as 67P warms and becomes more active.
The jets of gas and dust that are generated as the comet's internal ices are heated could disturb the robot in such a way that it is bumped to a more favourable lighting location.
For sure, Philae will be very cold in the long nights it is experiencing, but the assessment of the thermal status of the probe is encouraging. It can survive.
If this is the last we hear from the robot, history will be very quick to judge this mission as an astonishing success.
Yes, the robot had some systems failures in its landing mechanisms, but it would be churlish in the extreme to dwell on these shortcomings.
The robot delivered almost 100% of its primary goals, returning the first-ever pictures and other science data from the surface of a comet.
And it has been a blast. This past week's events really caught the world's attention.
So how about we do it again? This is the dream certainly of many who control Philae's mothership, Rosetta.
It will continue to orbit and observe 67P for at least another year, but after that there is a desire to put the satellite on the surface of the comet as well.
"I would like to land on the surface of the comet with the full spacecraft - definitely," says European Space Agency flight director Andrea Accomazzo.
"In the end, we can design an approach trajectory to the comet. We just slow down the spacecraft and it falls on to the comet.
"The touchdown will not be as soft as the lander. There's no landing gear; the spacecraft would be mechanically damaged. But we can do it."
And Paolo Ferri, Esa's head of mission operations, added: "We would plan such a manoeuvre so that we could follow Rosetta down to the surface. But once it touches down, we cannot control anymore the attitude. So, the antenna will not be pointing to the right direction.
"We would lose the contact when it touches down, but we would still be able to control it down to the last metre, to get signal, measurements and pictures. It would be spectacular. That's the right way to die."
You can hear more from Accomazzo and Ferri in the BBC Radio 4 Frontiers special we recorded from mission control on Wednesday night - if you haven't already caught the programme.
And there'll be a special Sky At Night edition dedicated to Philae's exploits on BBC Four television this Sunday at 2100 GMT.
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A man has been charged with assault after a two-month-old boy was airlifted to hospital with head injuries. | The boy was airlifted from an address in Steward Gate, Bamford, Derbyshire, on Thursday and remains in a critical condition.
Anton Shield, of Hardwick Crescent, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, has been charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm with intent.
The 37-year-old appeared at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court earlier.
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In recent weeks, conservative commentators and politicians have begun arguing, with growing intensity, that Robert Mueller's investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia is the result of an intentional effort by biased investigators to undermine the Trump presidency. | Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
There are a number of components to the case they are presenting, from doubts about the impartiality of Mr Mueller and his team to questions about the integrity of the FBI and the Obama-era Justice Department.
All of it could be setting the ground for new investigations into the FBI or Democrat Hillary Clinton's actions while secretary of state - something Mr Trump himself has suggested - or perhaps even for the president to order the end of Mr Mueller's probe.
Such an action would provoke a major political crisis and could have unpredictable consequences. For Mr Trump's defenders, it may be enough simply to mire Mr Mueller's investigation in a partisan morass. Here are some are some of the ways they're trying to do that.
Tell-tale texts?
Peter Strzok, a senior counter-intelligence agent in the FBI and until this summer a top member of Mr Mueller's special counsel team, has become Exhibit A of anti-Trump bias in the Russia investigation.
A Justice Department inspector general review of the FBI's handling of its 2016 election investigations unearthed text messages between Mr Strzok and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who also temporarily worked on the Mueller investigation and with whom Mr Strzok was having an extramarital affair.
Some of the messages, which were provided to reporters, showed the two had a hostility toward then-candidate Trump in 2016. Ms Page called Mr Trump a "loathsome human" in March, as the candidate was cementing his lead in the Republican primary field. Three months later - after Mr Trump had secured the nomination - Mr Strzok wrote that he was an "idiot" who said "bigoted nonsense".
In an August text, Mr Strzok discussed a meeting with then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in which Ms Page apparently had mentioned there was "no way" Mr Trump could be elected.
"I'm afraid we can't take that risk," Mr Strzok wrote. "It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
Some have theorised that the "insurance policy" in question was an FBI plan to destroy Mr Trump if he were to win. Others have suggested that it was simply a reference to the need to continue working the Trump-Russia investigation even though his election seemed unlikely.
"It is very sad when you look at those documents," Mr Trump said on Friday, apparently referring to the texts. "And how they've done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it." He said it was a shame what had happened to the FBI and that it would be "rebuilt".
Since the first coverage of the story, reporters have reviewed more of the Strzok-Page texts and found the two made disparaging comments about a wide range of public figures, including Chelsea Clinton, Democrat Bernie Sanders, then-Attorney General Eric Holder, Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich, and Mrs Clinton.
"I'm worried about what happens if HRC is elected," Mr Strzok wrote, referring to Mrs Clinton by her initials.
Why it could matter: If Mr Strzok, a high-ranking member of the FBI who officially launched the initial investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, harboured anti-Trump animus, there is the possibility it could have motivated him to influence the investigation to the president's disadvantage.
Why it might not: Government employees are allowed to express political views as long as they don't influence their job performance. The breadth of the Strzok-Page texts could indicate they were just gossiping lovers. Without context, Mr Strzok's "insurance" line is vague. When Mr Mueller learned of the text this summer, Mr Strzok was removed from the independent counsel investigation and reassigned to a human resources job.
The Clinton case
Mr Strzok also figures prominently in Republican concerns about the FBI's handling of its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Mr Strzok took part in interviews with key Clinton aides and reportedly was involved in drafting the report that concluded Mrs Clinton's actions did not warrant criminal charges, including changing the description of her handling of classified material from "grossly negligent" - which might have suggested illegal behaviour - to "extremely careless".
During the campaign Mr Trump repeatedly insisted that the Justice Department should re-open its investigation into Mrs Clinton and, after backing away from the idea early in his presidency, has once again renewed those calls.
"High ranking FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation were personally invested in the outcome of the election and clearly let their strong political opinions cloud their professional judgement," Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte said during a House Judicial Committee hearing.
There's also the possibility that there were more communications between Ms Page and Mr Strzok about the Clinton investigation that have yet to come to light.
"We text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can't be traced, you were just venting [because] you feel bad that you're gone so much but it can't be helped right now," Ms Page wrote in one text.
Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he wants more information about the use of these "untraceable" phones.
Why it could matter: If FBI agents backed off their investigation of Mrs Clinton in 2016 it could be further evidence of bias within the bureau that could affect its ongoing investigation into Mr Trump. If public confidence in the FBI is eroded, the ultimate findings of Mr Mueller's probe may be cast in doubt.
Why it might not: Lest anyone forget, Mrs Clinton's candidacy was the one wounded by FBI actions in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Then-Director James Comey's announcement of new evidence in the inquiry into her private email server - perhaps prompted by anti-Clinton leaks from the bureau's New York office - dominated the headlines and renewed concerns about the former secretary of state. News of the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation, on the other hand, didn't emerge until well after the election.
Marital woes
When it comes to the ongoing investigations into the investigations, it's not just the actions of the principals involved that have come under the spotlight. Spouses have figured prominently, as well.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the bureau's second-in-command, is married to Jill McCabe, a paediatrician who ran as a Democrat for a Virginia state senate seat in 2015 (before Mr McCabe was promoted to his current position). During the hotly contested race, Ms McCabe received $467,500 in campaign contributions from a political action committee controlled by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a close political ally of the Clinton family.
Conservatives contend that this donation should have disqualified Mr McCabe from involvement in the Clinton case - and was yet another example of possible anti-Trump bias in the FBI's Russia investigation.
"If Mr McCabe failed to avoid the appearance of a partisan conflict of interest in favour of Mrs Clinton during the presidential election, then any participation in [the Russia] inquiry creates the exact same appearance of a partisan conflict of interest against Mr Trump," Senator Grassley wrote in a letter to then-Director Comey in March.
Meanwhile, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce G Ohr was recently reported as being employed in 2016 by Fusion GPS, the political research firm that produced the dossier containing unconfirmed allegations of Mr Trump's Russia entanglements. Mr Ohr himself has been connected to Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence agent who collected the material for the dossier.
Fusion GPS's anti-Trump research efforts were originally funded by a Republican donor and later backed by groups associated with the Democratic Party and the Clinton presidential campaign.
Why it matters: "Power couples" - spouses with influential, complementary political jobs - are a Washington tradition, and the actions of one partner are often considered to reflect on the views and behaviour of the other. In Mr McCabe's case, his wife's Democratic activism and allegiances could shed light on his political sympathies. For Mr Ohr, his marriage could have served as a conduit to inject Democratic-funded opposition research into the Justice Department.
Why it might not: Having a political spouse is not evidence of official bias. The identity of the individuals or groups that funded and gathered anti-Trump research and how it ended up in government hands does not necessarily have a bearing on whether the information is valid or merits further investigation.
Follow the money
The individuals working on the Russia investigation have been billed as a "dream team" by Democrats and liberal commentators hoping the efforts will eventually topple the Trump presidency.
Many conservatives beg to differ.
In June, as details of the special counsel hires began to emerge, conservatives noted that some of the biggest names - Andrew Weissmann, James Quarles, Jeannie Rhee and Michael Dreeben - had given money to Democratic presidential candidates.
"Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair," former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tweeted. "Look who he is hiring."
Ms Rhee's private law work included representing Democrats, such as Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and the Clinton Foundation in a lawsuit brought by a conservative activist group.
Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz recently travelled to Florida with Mr Trump and said he told the president that the independent counsel investigation was "infected with bias" against him - a view echoed in the conservative press.
"What we've seen over the past seven months of the Mueller investigation reveals a lot about how big government can end up becoming a threat to representative democracy," Laura Ingraham said on her Fox News programme. "And the more we look at the web of Clinton and Obama loyalists who burrowed into Mueller's office, the more obvious it all becomes."
Why it could matter: Political donations and legal work may be evidence of the ideological tilt of Mr Mueller's investigative team. That he has assembled a group of lawyers that may lean to the left could mean the investigation itself is predisposed to findings damaging to Mr Trump.
Why it might not: Investigators are adversarial by nature, and as long as Mr Mueller's team builds its cases with hard evidence, personal political views should not matter. While political partisans may focus on staff-level appointments, the investigation will rise and fall based on perceptions of Mr Mueller himself.
Mr Mueller's waiver
Prior to accepting the position as special counsel investigating possible Trump campaign ties to Russia, Mr Mueller requested - and received - an "ethics waiver" for possible conflicts of interest from the US Department of Justice.
The government has confirmed the existence of the waiver but has not revealed any details, although speculation at the time was that it had to do with Mr Mueller's work at the law firm WilmerHale, which represented former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort - who Mr Mueller has since indicted on money-laundering charges - and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Why it could matter: Without further information about the nature of the waiver, some are speculating that there is more to this request than simply routine ethical paperwork. Given that Mr Mueller is a former director of the FBI, with ties to many of the bureau officials who are now coming under conservative scrutiny, Mr Mueller's own allegiances are being called into question.
Why it might not: Mr Mueller is a decorated war veteran who, prior to taking the special counsel role was widely praised for his independence and probity. He was appointed FBI head by Republican George W Bush in 2001. If Mr Mueller's waiver had explosive details indicating clear bias, it probably would have leaked by now.
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The Queen has issued a statement following talks held between senior members of the Royal Family on Monday. The so-called Sandringham summit was called to discuss a new role for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. | Here is her statement in full:
"Today my family had very constructive discussions on the future of my grandson and his family.
"My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan's desire to create a new life as a young family. Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.
"Harry and Meghan have made clear that they do not want to be reliant on public funds in their new lives.
"It has therefore been agreed that there will be a period of transition in which the Sussexes will spend time in Canada and the UK.
"These are complex matters for my family to resolve, and there is some more work to be done, but I have asked for final decisions to be reached in the coming days."
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We asked our readers to send in their pictures on the theme of "open spaces". Here are some of the pictures sent to us from around the world.
| The next theme is "garden creatures" and the deadline for entries is 18 August 2020.
Send pictures to [email protected] or follow the link below to "Upload your pictures here".
Further details and terms can be found by following the link to "We set the theme, you take the picture" at the bottom of the page.
All photographs subject to copyright.
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The cold, dark waters more than a hundred metres below the surface of the ocean are not a forgiving environment for human beings. The pressure, more than 10 times that at the surface, can quickly cause unconsciousness - fatal at that depth. | By Joel GunterBBC News
But for freedivers - a small band of extreme sportsmen and women who propel themselves down in no more than a wetsuit - the deepest part of the dive is not even the most dangerous. That comes as they ascend to the surface, sustained by a breath taken several minutes before, when a diver can succumb to so-called "shallow water blackout" just metres from fresh air.
Natalia Molchanova, widely regarded as the best female freediver in the world, took a deep breath on Sunday and dipped beneath the waves off the coast of Ibiza. She had done this countless times, but this time she didn't resurface. On Tuesday, the International Freediving Association (AIDA) released a statement saying Ms Molchanova was missing, and she is now presumed dead.
Ms Molchanova was not performing a deep dive. If anything, Sunday's dive was completely routine. According to the AIDA statement, she was at just 30m-40m - well short of her record depth of 127m. She was however performing a kind of dive called Constant Weight Apnea Without Fins (CNF) in which the diver wears just a weight belt and thin wetsuit. It is thought that she was caught in a strong underwater current and, without any fins to help propel her, was unable to fight against it. The search for her body continues.
So what then is the attraction of swimming down into this harsh environment, where the whim of a deep invisible current can carry you away or the pressure of the water cause the gases in your body to produce hallucinations, unconsciousness, and eventually death?
A film of the champion Kiwi freediver William Trubridge gives some sense of the lure of the deep. As the camera follows him down into the thinning light, his slow breast stroke is hypnotic. Even watching on a screen, there is a palpable sense of calm. "When you stop breathing you suspend the body's natural metronome, which it uses to count out time," Mr Trubridge told the BBC down the phone, "so holding your breath is almost like suspending time itself. A freedive is like a journey outside of yourself and outside of time."
At some point, a freediver's lungs become sufficiently compressed by the pressure change that the diver becomes negatively buoyant - they will sink without having to propel themselves. "It is the most peaceful part of the dive," said Mr Trubridge. "You are completely still and it is like you are expected. You are drawn into the ocean."
Stephen Whelan, a recreational freediver who runs Deeper Blue, a website devoted to the sport, echoed Mr Trubridge. "Freedivers go to incredible depths, they do incredible distances underwater, they hold their breath for seemingly inhuman amounts of time," he said. "But freediving is a very peaceful and relaxing sport. If you watch freedivers before they go under, it's about deep breathing. It's about getting into a calm mental state and staying calm throughout the dive. And it's a very introspective sport, the divers have to shut out the outside world. It's a sport of two extremes - you go to extreme depths but you also have to go deep into yourself to do it."
The best freedivers hold their breath for extraordinary lengths of time, perhaps three to five minutes on a deep dive but nearly twice that while lying still in a pool. They rely on something called the "mammalian dive reflex" - a reaction to cold water around the face that slows the heart rate dramatically and shifts blood from the extremities to the core of the body. The process - vital to water mammals such as dolphins but present in humans - allows freedivers to go for so long without air.
At nine minutes and two seconds, Ms Molchanova holds the world record for static apnea - holding your breath while lying face down in a pool. Her other records - of which there are many - are measured in distance: 71m for diving with a weight belt but without fins; 101m for the same dive but with fins; 127m for a kind of dive that uses a heavy weight to push the diver down. She held the female record in seven of the eight disciplines recognised by the AIDA, bested only by British diver Tanya Streeter who reached 160m in the most dangerous "No Limit Apnea" dive.
Deaths like Ms Molchanova's often provoke two sorts of reactions: tributes from the world of extreme sports and those who sympathise with the thrillseekers; and scorn from those who think the victims only have themselves to blame. Just a few hours after the story broke, Philip Gourevitch, a staff writer at the New Yorker, tweeted: "Natalia Molchanova, Champion Free Diver, presumed dead … because free diving is a "sport" like Russian Roulette is". Mr Gourevitch was rounded on for the insensitivity of his comments.
"Russian roulette is absolutely not true," said Mr Whelan. "It's an ill-informed comment from someone who should know better." And the statistics back him up: in more than 20 years of competitive freediving - and more than 50,000 competitive dives, according to the AIDA - only one person has lost their life. In 2013, Nicholas Mevoli, 32, of Brooklyn, New York, was attempting the same type of dive as Ms Molchanova when he lost consciousness on the way to the surface and later died. Out of competition, about five other people are thought to have lost their lives while training, most attempting the "No Limit" dive.
"It is not common that these accidents happen," said Kimmo Lahtinen, the president of AIDA. But experience is no guarantee against misfortune, he added: "When they do happen, they can happen to the most experienced divers because these are the people who are pushing the limits. That's what they do. It's like a paradox for me, when you are inexperienced you respect safe limits. When you are very experienced, you are on top of everything and you are really testing the human limits. Now Natalia, who was very very experienced, is lost."
Mr Lahtinen said he was surprised Ms Molchanova got into trouble on such a simple dive, and said he had never heard of a freediver being lost to a strong current. Ultimately though, he said, the ocean is stronger than even the most skilled diver.
"Accidents happen and sometimes they happen to the people who are superstars, like Natalia," he said. "When we are playing with the ocean we know who is the strongest, and we must respect that.
"Nobody expected this, but sometimes these things come out of the blue."
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When travel start-up Pana held a meeting for all of its employees over Zoom, they explained that some staff would be laid off, and that there would be two further calls that morning - one at 09:00 for those who would be laid off, and one at 09:45 for those who would not. | By Sooraj ShahTechnology of Business reporter
Employees would know which meeting they were attending by the invites they would have received by email.
Sales executive Ruthie Townsend was invited to join the 09:00 call but, due to the shock of the news, she could not remember which call was for those about to be laid off, and which was for those being retained.
"Because it was such a highly stressful situation, it was hard to process what was going on so I got mixed up. I joined the 09:00 call as that was the invite I had, and once I realised that I was being laid off, I quickly turned off my video," she says.
Ms Townsend was on the call with 15 of her colleagues, and executives from the company then walked these employees through the benefits, the severance package and the next steps.
The company, based in Denver, Colorado, had been hit by the collapse in travel due to the coronavirus outbreak.
But there had been a feeling that redundancies would be a last resort, and Ms Townsend had no idea what was coming that morning.
That kind of shock is unfortunately commonplace at the moment, as companies are slashing staff numbers to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus.
Before the crisis managers would usually have met staff face-to-face, to give them the bad news.
Now video-conferencing tools, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams (MS Teams), are being used to replicate the formality of the meeting.
Chris Malone, an audio visual technician at events company Sparq in the UK, feared for his role when it was explained to him that a HR representative would be on his next MS Teams call along with his line manager.
His instincts proved correct, as he was told he was going to be laid off.
For him, the use of a video call made the meeting formal, but more awkward than an in-person meeting or telephone call.
"I think if you were doing it over the phone, it would mean you don't have to look at someone but when you have the video call, you get dressed up to make it feel formal and to look presentable.
"Even though it is a video call, the pressure is there - and as you're not in the room with them there isn't a natural chemistry, connection or body language you can read off, and there's a little bit of a delay, you're waiting for someone else to say something," he says.
However, Mr Malone believes that a one-to-one video call is still the best way a business can break the unfortunate news to an employee in the current circumstances.
For Ms Townsend, there were pros and cons to having more than 15 people on the same call as her.
"I don't think any way of making someone redundant over video conference is going to be ideal. If it's one-on-one, it's still going to be really hard and then your boss is going to see all of your emotions. I liked the group setting because I turned off my video, and I didn't have to say anything," she says.
However, she believes that the group setting prevented her from asking important questions at the time.
More Technology of Business
Sarah Evans, partner at law firm JMW, explains that communication prior to any announcement is key for employers.
"What many big businesses can do is conduct large meetings on Zoom, to make an announcement to the same people at the same time, so there's no miscommunication going around," she says.
This would make it clear that redundancies or the furlough scheme are being considered for employees, and would also make clear what this means for the business, and how they intend to follow-up with individuals.
It is key for employers to provide employees with time to absorb the information, ask questions and give people the opportunity to voluntarily be made redundant or furloughed.
"In redundancy cases, that would be at least a couple of meetings to go through opportunities to avoid redundancy and consider alternatives, and there's no reason why all of this can't be done on Zoom," she says.
The use of video, phone call or in-person, is not a legal matter; it's merely a matter of etiquette.
However, the group call, which Ruthie Townsend had experienced in the US, would not be allowed in the UK.
"That wouldn't cut it in UK law, as you have a right to individual consultation. There's nothing wrong with a group call to announce potential redundancies but you shouldn't be making people redundant in the same video call," Ms Evans says.
If this were the way a UK employer had acted, the employee might then have a case for unfair dismissal.
The option to record video calls could also prove problematic in these cases.
Peter Binning, a partner at law firm Corker Binning, explains that, generally speaking, anyone should ask for consent before recording a call of any kind.
However, regardless of whether consent was asked for, given or not given, a recorded conversation could still be admissible in an unfair dismissal case.
"Whoever wants to use the evidence has to be able to prove that it had been properly recorded and was genuine but it would be a matter for the court or tribunal to decide whether that evidence should be admitted," Mr Binning says.
And those wanting to snoop on people by deliberately joining a Zoom call where someone else is being made redundant would most definitely be breaking the law - as there are a number of criminal offences about intercepting communications in the regulations.
While video may create new problems, it is the best replacement for a meeting in person.
"It will feel more uncomfortable to look someone in the eye, and the level of emotional frustration and anger will be more visible, but it is essential to delivering the message in an open, fair and transparent way to another person," says Stuart Duff, an expert on the psychology of leadership at business psychology consultancy Pearn Kandola.
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The death of a man who was hit on a tram crossing is to be investigated by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB). | The 81-year-old man was hit on Woodbourn Road, Sheffield, by a tram heading towards Meadowhall on 22 December and died the following day.
It was travelling near the stop at about 13mph (21km/h), said the RAIB.
The probe will consider what led to the death and any "relevant underlying management factors", it said.
Its findings and any safety recommendations are to be published at the end of the investigation, said the government body.
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Consumer and government pressure is growing on oil and gas producers. They've seen off protests before, but this time could be different and permanent, and there are signs that they know it. In addition to emissions, plastic has become a dirty word - the reaction from Grangemouth is that Ineos sees producing being separate from environmental impact of waste. Shell has chosen to prioritise conventional oil and shareholder return over a transition in energy. More acreage of UK seabed has just been released for drilling. Government has to decide what climate emergency will mean, in transport taxation and in constraining the oil and gas industry. The industry, for its part, is stepping up efforts to align itself with the climate change campaign. | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
A Swedish teenager with an unnerving calm and clarity of message, delivered in her second language, has governments and industries quaking. The campaign she leads has climate emergencies being declared, the first national one by Nicola Sturgeon.
No industry is more at risk from the growing pressure for radical change than the oil and gas industry. Deirdre Michie, chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, representing and leading the industry, said on Tuesday it's listening to Greta Thunberg, and also wants to act for a better world.
The oil industry has seen green activists before, and it's seen them off. A recent trawl through the archives for BBC Radio 4 reflected on the fact that oil majors knew emissions were causing damage to the atmosphere, and potentially to climate, before scientists had started publishing research on it, back in 1975.
Is this time going to be any different? Perhaps. There is now a credible alternative to oil-fuelled transport, through battery power, and it may be emerging as a technology faster than you'd think possible. Don't forget that the transition from horse-drawn to horseless carriages was not gradual.
The Attenborough effect is also galvanising people into action. The Blue Planet 2 whale with its calf apparently killed by ingesting plastic drew attention to the despoiled state of the oceans. Not only emissions from burning fossil fuels, but detritus from the throwaway economy, is focussing minds of consumers, and therefore also politicians and producers.
So maybe this time will be different. But on the evidence of one day's news, on Tuesday, it'll take a long time to turn this oil tanker round.
Plastics
Shell set out a strategic review which included a commitment to investment in electricity generation. The Dutch-British oil major didn't say if that's in renewables, but oil companies have been making significant moves in that direction.
But that's only the last of its reset priorities. The others show little sign of a change of focus. It remains oriented not to conventional oil and gas extraction, but shale and deepwater.
Downstream, it wants to continue being a big player in petrochemicals, at a time when plastics production is no longer the clean industry you perceive from the polythene wrap.
A campaigning BBC TV programme against plastic waste fronted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has this week pitted him against Ineos at Grangemouth, with senior director Tom Crotty dismissing the programme's approach as "pathetic". The question for both campaigner and producer is whether the disposal of plastic waste can be wholly separated from its manufacture.
The big change for Shell is not that it is re-directing its efforts to meet consumer pressure, but that it's opened the taps on a far higher return to shareholders, through dividends and buy-back of shares.
In 2011 to 2015, that amounted to $52bn. In 2016 to 2020, it's up to $90bn. From 2021 to 2025, it is targeting a staggering $125bn for shareholders.
However, the chief executive acknowledged it can't all be about shareholders. He told Bloomberg business news: "We want to position the company for the future of energy. The future will involve oil and gas, by the way. But it will also be a future where much more of the dynamics of the market are dictated by the customer."
Mopping up
Also on Tuesday morning, the Oil and Gas Authority was announcing the companies that have succeeded in their bids to win new licences to explore blocks of the UK seabed.
This is a "frontier" round, and the 31st such round of licensing since the UK government started encouraging explorers into its waters. A 32nd is soon to get under way, focussed more on developments around mature fields.
In the south and central North Sea, and far to the north of Shetland, what is striking is how few blocks have gone to the big majors.
They are there, notably Equinor (formerly Statoil of Norway) with five licences. But far more of the acreage has been won by the smaller independents who are mopping up the smaller opportunities and mature offshore fields that the majors - including Chevron last week - are exiting.
Crude
And then there's the oil price. As the USA recently boosted production beyond that of even Saudi Arabia and Russia (which have held back production in an effort to support the price), oil traders are reading into the Tweet-rattling of Donald Trump the prospect of a damaging trade dispute ahead.
Global growth has slowed anyway. That's clear in the eurozone. Inflation there has dropped more than expected. Germany is barely growing. Australia, after an unprecedented 28 years of sustained growth, is very close to stalling.
Piling on top of that a trade dispute with China, and another with Mexico, and warning Europe on its car exports, President Trump has the clout to choke off growth altogether, and push up prices for his own consumers in the process.
That can cut both ways on oil and gas production. The price of a barrel of Brent crude has fallen from nearly $72 to below $61 in only two weeks. That may choke off investment plans, until oil companies feel reassured that the price has reached a floor.
We learned from Equinor on Tuesday that the Rosebank field, north-west of Shetland in 1,100 metres of the Atlantic, is not to have a final investment decision made until spring of 2022. That's while it takes more time to learn from other deepwater developments about ways to design cost out of it. The UK regulator has given it a three-year extension to its licence.
But cheaper oil also means more people getting behind the wheel in old gas-guzzlers to burn the stuff, and to buy cheap air tickets. In the US and the UK, the fall in driving costs were accompanied by tough times for the bus operators.
The Scottish government incurred the fury of airports and airline managers with a U-turn on its plan to halve air departure tax.
It now has to make clear what it's going to do about ground transport - building roads and pricing road use to discourage mileage, or at least to put a marginal price on transport so that the polluter pays.
Emergency
Then if it is serious about "climate emergency", it has to say something about oil and gas production.
Ministers acted swiftly, said a spokeswoman, after being told of the growing imminence of dangerous climate change. They set a new target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045 at the latest. "We are now looking across our policies to make sure that they align with that increased scale of ambition.
"The domestic oil and gas industry and its supply chain can play a positive role in supporting the transition. We are committed to achieving a net-zero emissions economy in a way that is fair for all."
That may mean being "fair" to those who have invested heavily in the fossil fuel sector, including much of north-east Scotland and the northern isles. It would not be politically easy to turn the taps off.
What role for Westminster, once a new Conservative prime minister is in charge? Who knows? But this does not look like a leadership race that will feature damage to the environment, and nor will it be uppermost in the mind of the eventual winner. Brexit, immigration and winning back friends in business are likely to be higher priorities.
Better world
Back at the Aberdeen conference where Deirdre Michie was seeking a new way of engaging with the environment lobby, she took the offshore engineers' approach: find a way through the challenge. Be inventive. Innovate.
Find better ways to cut the industry's own very high use of fossil fuels. Put offshore skills to work on marine energy. And find ways to capture carbon and store it, economically.
But facing pressure to "keep it in the ground", and investors pressured into divesting from oil companies, the message is to keep drilling in the North Sea and Atlantic waters, rather than rely on importing it over long distances, adding the carbon footprint of the tankers that bring it here.
"While we continue to advocate with facts and evidence, I appreciate that it can sound like corporate speak that doesn't have the emotion or the urgency that society and we, as part of society, are all feeling," Michie told industry figures.
"Anyone and everyone who wants to change the world for the better can work with us to help ensure a fair and just and managed transition and at a pace that will also be required.
"Later this year we'll publish the road map which will set out how we can successfully deliver the vision and our industry's sustainable future, to ensure it continues to contribute to the country in terms of hundreds of thousands of jobs, security of energy supply, billions of pounds in taxes and investment levels, for decades to come."
If that lives up to the advance billing, it will be an important moment for the country's economy, and possibly a turning point for the climate change campaign, at least in this corner of this endangered planet.
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How well do you remember the stories and people in the news this year?
| Test your memory of 2019 in the next instalment of our four-part Christmas quiz - 52 questions for 52 weeks of the year. This section covers July to September
If you cannot see the quiz, click here.
Picture credits: Getty Images, Reuters, Dave, EPA
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Thousands of skilled workers who cannot find work in Greece, Spain and Portugal could help fill vacancies in other parts of the EU, officials in Brussels say.
The European Commission is trying to improve co-operation between government employment agencies in different countries to make it happen. But will it work? And is increased job mobility a good thing in the long run? | By Maddy SavageBBC News, Groot Bijgaarden, Belgium
Pedro Guimaraes, 45, supervises a team of construction workers as they put the finishing touches to a new block of flats in northern Belgium.
It is a chilly, misty day and he is wrapped in a well-worn sheepskin jacket underneath a florescent yellow tabard.
"I came here from Portugal around six months ago," he says, balancing carefully on a metal walkway.
"I was without a job for three months and this was a way to pay the bills, because I have a lot of bills!"
In Portugal more than 15% of the potential workforce is unemployed, compared with 7% in Belgium.
"The negatives are [that I am] too far away from my children and my friends and the good weather too," Mr Guimaraes adds.
He relocated with the help of Portugal's government employment service, the IEFP.
It has started expanding its co-operation with public job agencies in Belgium and other parts of northern Europe, as part of the EU's employment services network, EURES.
On Monday the Commission said EURES would be modernised, with a more user-friendly online job search and a bigger focus on young people, considered to be more mobile. The job matches will include apprenticeships, combining work and learning opportunities.
Bigger pool
This year Portugal has hosted several European Job Days - recruitment fairs where potential candidates can be matched with employers from abroad.
Mr Guimaraes's boss, Hans Jacob, was one of them.
"Belgium has a shortage of construction workers and engineers, so we have advertised abroad before," Mr Jacob says.
"But these kinds of co-ordinated initiatives are much easier for us."
Across the EU, only around 3% of working-age adults (aged 15-64) currently live in another EU member state.
But there is evidence that those from the most troubled economies are becoming increasingly willing to move abroad to find work.
Between January 2009 and November 2012, the number of people from Portugal, Greece and Spain signed up to the EU's online job matching service increased from 60,000 to around 300,000.
However, records suggest only about 5,000 of those jobseekers secured work through the site or other initiatives organised by EURES.
There are an estimated 5.5m unfilled vacancies across Europe.
'Brain drain'
"We know from the statistics that job mobility of people within the EU is very low and there is a lot of room for improvement," admits Gregorio De Castro, a EURES employment policy officer.
But he argues that EURES is making a transition from an advice and information outlet to one that deals more closely with job-matching and recruitment, and points out that some data on successful matches might have been missed.
Critics might point out that EU's online job-matching service was launched in 2003 and the eurozone crisis is about to enter its sixth year.
"The employment recovery has taken longer than expected," accepts Mr De Castro.
There has been strong criticism of the EU's strategy from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which organised pan-European demonstrations against high unemployment and austerity earlier this month.
"This could lead to a brain drain and a youth drain," says deputy general secretary Patrick Itschert.
"Free movement of work is a fundamental right but if too many engineers, for example, move [away] from Spain and Portugal, it will have an absolute impact on the future of industry, on the economy in those countries in the following years."
He believes there could also be problems for member states that receive workers from other parts of the EU.
"You have to make sure that there is equal pay and equal work and conditions. And you have to be aware that there is probably some unemployment in those countries as well."
Language challenge
In the town of Aalst, just outside Brussels, Joana Maria Soares Maig, 24, and Maria Eduarda Louto da Silva, 29, are two Portuguese nurses who have also made the move to Belgium this year.
They found work through a private agency after taking an intensive course in Dutch, the language most commonly spoken in the north of Belgium.
"It was difficult in the beginning, I missed my family," says Ms Soares Maig, who is working in the hospital's radiology department.
"It is also hard for a Portuguese girl to learn this language."
Both women have left their boyfriends behind and share a small apartment together.
Back on the building site, Pedro Guimaraes says he wants to return to Portugal as soon as he can, but he has plenty of Portuguese friends who are planning to settle in Belgium for good, after relocating their families.
"They know that the way of life is easier and they could live better here," he says.
Mr Guimaraes looks likely to remain separated from his family for a while longer, as well as from his beloved sunshine.
Increased job mobility may yet help cut unemployment, but for those who make the decision to move abroad, it often comes with sacrifices.
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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) here in Las Vegas hasn't even officially started yet - but already there are some weird and wonderful gadgets on display at the enormous hotels playing host to the annual tech-fest, now in its 47th year. | By Zoe KleinmanTechnology reporter, BBC News, Las Vegas
Thousands of exhibitors, journalists and industry experts attend the trade fair, which is not open to the public.
Everybody tries to get sneak peeks beforehand, and some gadgets are just not easy to hide - I bumped into Thierry Reymond, of Rollkers, sitting, as nonchalantly as he could, in a hotel corridor with a pretty conspicuous pair of prototype wheels strapped unceremoniously to his shoes.
I asked him what on Earth he was wearing. They were a form of personal travelator, he whispered, and would double your walking speed.
"I had a pair of those as a kid, but I called them rollerskates," said one unimpressed tweeter in response.
Ruthless data-gatherers
Determined to see more, I elbowed - literally - my way into last night's CES Unveiled, a preview event where selected companies got to show off their wares ahead of their competitors.
It took a short while to acclimatise to the sheer number of products blinking, buzzing and in many cases looking right back at us.
At first glance, some of it looked decidedly old-school - plant pots, toothbrushes, a bedside lamp.
But you won't find these in a school jumble sale any time soon.
Connectivity is going to be a big tech theme this year according to the analysts and all these items are ruthless data-gatherers, gathering information about your habits (good and bad) and sharing them with your phone, tablet, laptop - and in some cases each other - to build up an accurate picture of you.
Among the more colourful stands was a company called Holi with its Smart Lamp and Sleep Companion, a smartphone-controlled coloured light that relaxes you into sleep with warm red and pink light and wakes you up gently with the help of a blue hue.
The reds and pinks direct the body to release sleep hormone melatonin, the company claims, and the blue light wakes the body up before the alarm wakes the mind.
If you do wake up in the night, you can activate a seven-minute "meditation programme" of light sequences to lull you back to sleep again. It doesn't work on babies though, which is annoying for the parents of infants with sleep issues, who probably need it most.
The lamp also monitors your bedroom environment using, among other sensors, your smartphone's microphone to track noise levels.
It can share this data with whatever you like - including fitness bands, Google Health or a smart-home set-up such as Nest, in order to improve your sleeping habits.
Oh, and if you're not that tired, there's also a "romance" button you can press on your phone, which activates a soft light as a visual clue to your partner that something other than sleep might be on the cards.
Somehow I can't see that having the desired effect… but maybe in Paris, the city of love, where the lamp was developed, people are more, well, receptive to that sort of hint.
What a faff
For some reason there was a lot of French tech at this year's final preview. The French exhibitors even had their own little sub-brand - "La French Tech" - and was it coincidence that the buffet was loaded with mountains of cheese? I think not.
Another French gem was the Parrot Pot, a plant pot that contains sensors to measure soil moisture, temperature, sunlight and fertiliser.
Due to go on sale this year, it will enable you to look after your favourite flora via your smartphone for up to four weeks without actually getting your hands dirty - the app is pre-loaded with the care requirements of 8,000 varieties of plant.
If touching your touchscreen has become a bit of a faff, Ring, by Logbar, is a device that enables you to operate your device by simply waving your finger at it instead.
In honesty for me this soon became an even bigger faff - the ring has to sit on your index finger, the sensor has to be in a certain place and you have to press it with your thumb in order for it to be work.
Despite much patience from the demo staff, mine never did do what it was supposed to. Perhaps the sensor had also picked up on my scepticism.
Time to move swiftly on to Rainbow Kids - an electric toothbrush aimed at eight- to 14-year-olds.
It contains a gyroscope and accelerometer and syncs with a phone app to share data about how well your child is brushing their teeth.
There's also a game they can play to encourage good brushing. There are adult smart toothbrushes set to debut here this week as well - health monitoring is forecast to become another big theme in the tech world in 2015.
If all of this is starting to feel like information overload, a start-up called Viaware may have the answer.
Exhibiting at a separate event for start-ups, accessible via some very curious shuttle buses decked out with neon lights and inexplicable empty ice buckets, Viaware's offering is a bracelet that you can programme to light up in different colours when you receive messages on your phone from various people.
There were 256 possible colours but they only recommended using eight, said founder Ben Isaacson.
But what if somebody contacts you and you don't have them in your bracelet?
"You'll find out when you next check your phone," said Mr Isaacson.
"Perhaps they're not that important."
Not important? Now that's something you don't hear very often at CES…
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Planned surgery has been cancelled at hospitals across the UK, leaving much work to be done once the Covid-19 emergency is over. But two colorectal surgeons at Bradford Royal Infirmary also believe that the surgical world will be permanently changed - as Dr John Wright discovers in his regular diary. | 27 April 2020
Like a runner who has discovered halfway through her race that it has changed from a sprint to a marathon, the hospital is coming to terms with a new pace and is recalibrating its stamina.
Numbers of cases have started to fall, but there's no finishing line in sight.
And as we continue running, we have to look ahead to the future - we have to work out how we can resume normal business, looking after patients with cancer and heart disease, asthma and arthritis.
At present, half the hospital is empty, while the other half has become a Covid-19 Red Zone; in time it will contain two parallel universes, Covid and non-Covid.
Surgeons, who have concentrated on emergency operations since the start of the epidemic, will resume planned operations in the non-Covid universe. But until a reliable test is developed that can be used to confirm that a patient is Covid-negative, the assumption will have to be that they are Covid-positive, and this has some important consequences.
I spoke to two consultant colorectal surgeons, Sonia Lockwood and Frankie Mosley, about what has changed for them so far, and what they think will change in future.
They confirmed that all work except for emergency surgery and some cancer surgery has been put on hold. They also said that keyhole surgery has come to a halt, as evidence from China and some European countries suggests that open surgery is safer for operating theatre staff.
Front line diary
Prof John Wright, a medical doctor and epidemiologist, is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and a veteran of cholera, HIV and Ebola epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. He is writing this diary for BBC News and recording from the hospital wards for BBC Radio 4's The NHS Front Line
It may now resume, in some cases, with the increased risk to medical staff being weighed against the risks to the patient of a longer stay in hospital, which is one of the consequences of open surgery.
But increased efforts will also be made to explore non-surgical options. Appendicitis provides a good example of this, Sonia says.
"We are looking to treat people conservatively, with antibiotics wherever we can. We're doing more complex scanning on patients to try and determine who will be suitable for that. So we're really avoiding operating on patients wherever possible."
And appendicitis also illustrates another point - people who really need treatment are not always coming to hospital.
"Where we would normally do appendectomies maybe once a day, maybe two or three a day, at first, after the lockdown, we didn't see any. But then, after a week or so, the patients that are coming in with appendicitis have come in with terrible appendicitis," Sonia says.
"They've waited at home until it's perforated, so what would have been a relatively straightforward illness and operation then becomes a much more significant illness and operation."
Normally, there would be a minimum of about 30 admissions coming through the hospital's surgical assessment unit every day but that went down to two or three, Sonia says.
The surgeons are also dealing with fewer cancer patients.
In some cases this is because a calculation has been made that the risk of bringing them in is higher than the risking of waiting. But there is another factor too, Frankie says.
"We certainly, at the moment, aren't diagnosing many cancers at all. Our main modality for diagnosing them is endoscopy - colon endoscopy [a camera inserted into the body on the end of a tube] - and we've more or less ceased that activity," she says.
"We are investigating people - we're scanning them, so we'll pick up the most advanced cancers - but we're not diagnosing anywhere near the normal numbers. So we are just putting this work off for later."
But operations carried out in full personal protective equipment (PPE), as they must be until there is a test for Covid-19, are time-consuming.
"What we may have been able to do six months ago, in a given day, we can only do half of that - and that's if we get all the theatres back, and all the ventilators back," Frankie says.
The same applies to diagnostic tests - X-rays, camera tests, endoscopy - everything will take longer because of safety procedures that have been put in place in for both patients and staff.
And this, combined with the fact that there will be a backlog of operations, will lead inevitably to more prioritisation, Sonia and Frankie believe.
At present, cancer surgery is a top priority, and for everyone else it's been first come first served, as Frankie puts it. In future they envisage pushing lower-priority operations down the queue.
What does that mean in the case of colorectal surgery?
"For us it will be some of people's haemorrhoid operations. They might have to put up with bleeding - it is inconvenient and unpleasant, but they might have to put up with it for a bit longer than they traditionally have had to," Frankie says.
Sonia adds that when it comes to general surgery, some hernia patients could be de-prioritised.
"While they've got lumps and bumps that are maybe uncomfortable and they've got some symptoms, most people have very mild symptoms," she says.
The remarkable drop off we've seen in hospital referrals, has been matched when it comes to A&E attendances. While we're worried about the patients who may not be coming to hospital when they need to, this also suggests that people who are using A&E have not always experienced an accident or an emergency.
"There are lots of people who use the NHS inappropriately, acknowledging that it's quicker to come to A&E and wait for hours than maybe wait for a GP appointment two weeks from now," Sonia says. "And I think the Covid crisis has actually highlighted that - that people are trying to bypass the system."
In an NHS which is struggling to meet ever increasing demand, we have an opportunity to reduce unnecessary hospital appointments - to do things differently. Patients have discovered the joys of seeing their consultant without leaving the comfort of their own homes, and remote or virtual consultations look like one of the big changes that are here to stay.
The success of our response to Covid-19 in hospitals across the UK has been down to a grassroots movement of doctors and nurses on the front line. They have been the ones who have taken control of the NHS, put their lives on the line and tamed the Covid dragon.
This has broken down a barrier between clinical and managerial staff in hospitals, Sonia says, and she looks forward to a continuation of open dialogue as we plan for the future.
In management theory, there's a classical model about change that describes how to unfreeze the existing system and then refreeze it in a new way of working. It's a neat concept but in reality this never happens. Until now. Covid-19 has defrosted the whole of the NHS, and we have to now work out what we want to keep and what we want to do differently.
Follow @docjohnwright on Twitter
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Costs up, revenues flat, profits collapsing. | Kamal AhmedBusiness editor@bbckamalon Twitter
In most firms that would be a recipe for disaster with calls for the chief executive to go and serious questions being asked about the business.
But for Wonga, the numbers released today actually contain within them the first glimmers of hope.
The new chairman, Andy Haste, has been in place since July. He has already said that in the future Wonga will be a smaller business with lower profits and slower, sustainable growth.
He wants to make Wonga a respectable financial services firm, properly regulated and with tighter lending criteria. Its role? A competitor to banks which impose high charges for unauthorised overdrafts.
In effect, Mr Haste has admitted that the company had been growing too fast and had been successful in part by resorting to unsustainable business practices.
One of those - sending out fake legal letters to people who had not repaid loans on time - led to a finding from the Financial Conduct Authority of "serious misconduct" in the summer.
Wonga was ordered to compensate 45,000 customers, costing £2.6m.
The regulator also revealed that Wonga had miscalculated customer balances, a pretty serious matter for a finance business.
Some 200,000 had overpaid on their loans. Even more had underpaid, meaning that Wonga was left out of pocket as a result of its own mistakes.
Today Wonga has announced that clearing up the various messes will cost £18m, with more staff and better control systems.
As a private business, the detail on Wonga is limited. It will be a question of digging through the accounts once they are laid at Companies House to see the underlying figures.
I have been told that the business has attempted to contact all 45,000 victims of the fake letters and that some compensation payments have been made.
But, it will be very difficult to track down customers whose loans were taken out as long ago as 2008. As yet, Wonga is not saying how many of the 45,000 people have responded.
Or how much is it has actually paid out.
Those are figures it will need to publish if it is to build confidence that it is fixing past mistakes.
When Wonga published its results last autumn, Errol Damelin, the then chief executive, said: "When we decided we wanted to provide short-term loans within 30 minutes, the financial industry incumbents told us it couldn't be done, but we found a way to do it responsibly, effectively and at scale."
He has since resigned, an entrepreneur caught out by the growing pains of the business.
It will be Mr Haste's job to take Wonga from being an unruly teenager to a rather more sober adult.
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Jeopardy - the iconic US trivia game show where contestants must answer clues "in the form of a question" - has never come across a contestant quite like professional gambler James Holzhauer in the decades it has been on air, writes Jonathan Berr. | Not only has Mr Holzhauer become only the second contestant in the show's history to earn more than $1m (£773,000) in one go, he has also hit the milestone over his multi-game spree faster than anyone in the show's history.
No one has come close to catching the Las Vegas sports bettor, who has been training for years for his moment in the spotlight.
"I've thought seriously about how to approach a potential Jeopardy appearance since 2012," Mr Holzhauer told BBC News in an email during his winning streak.
"I did look into some statistics on how to best approach the game board, and that played a part in my strategy," adds Mr Holzhauer, who holds a mathematics degree from the University of Illinois and prepared for the game's more esoteric categories by reading children's books.
'Cracking' the rules
Mr Holzhauer has been impressing fans and former players since 4 April with his calm demeanour and cat-like reflexes as he buzzes in with correct responses on 607 questions to clues from categories that range from the serious, like History, to the whimsical, like Occupational Verbs.
Most Jeopardy players focus on any particular category by solving the easy clues first, then work their way to the higher-value difficult ones. Mr Holzhauer takes the opposite approach.
His technique of targeting the "expensive" difficult clues first (as opposed to progressing from easy to hard) has triggered complaints from detractors who say it ruins the flow of the game, but praise from others who say he has "cracked the Jeopardy code".
He also has made hefty bets on "Daily Double" questions where players can risk as much as their entire score in one answer (a so-called "true daily double") - but rarely do.
This strategy of bouncing around the board - seemingly at random - in hunt for the "Daily Double" prizes is named the "Forrest Bounce" after former contestant Chuck Forrest. But unlike his predecessors, Mr Holzhauer is willing to risk far more money.
Fivethirtyeight.com, a website dedicated to odds and polls, has dubbed Mr Holzhauer "the man who solved Jeopardy".
According to the website, Mr Holzhauer has wagered $25,000 twice on Daily Doubles, topping the previous record of $19,000 for these types of bets.
He also places heavy wagers on the show's climactic final question dubbed "Final Jeopardy".
Jeopardy's staff, including long-time host Alex Trebek, reportedly are not fans of the "Forrest Bounce", arguing that it disrupts the natural order of the show.
But regardless of how he picks his questions, he still must buzz in first - and most importantly - give the correct answers.
One thing that future contestants will not be able to copy from Mr Holzhauer are his shout-outs to friends and family during Final Jeopardy, a practice that the show's producers no longer allow, according to an announcement he made on his Facebook page.
Is the strategy paying off?
Though Jeopardy is a battle of wits, it can be physically and mentally gruelling since producers tape five episodes at a time, according to Brad Rutter, whose $4.8m in winnings over 14 years is the most of any Jeopardy player.
"You can study some stuff, but it's not like there is any real canon of knowledge that you can sit down and memorise," he told BBC News.
"You have to have a brain that works that way and pick it up over the years.
"There are a few things that come up all of the time like presidents and world capitals and Shakespeare that you would be well served to study before going on," he advises.
Washington Post Columnist Norman Chad has likened Mr Holzhauer's dominance to "the most fearsome, dominant individual-sport athletes of the past couple of generations such as boxer Mike Tyson, swimmer Michael Phelps and tennis player Serena Williams".
Ken Jennings, whose own winning streak captured audience imaginations in 2004, tweeted: "This is absolutely insane. I've always wanted to see someone try Jeopardy wagering this way who had the skills to back it up."
Jeopardy trivia facts
But is it good TV?
Not everyone is a Holzhauer supporter.
He has become a sensation on social media where some Twitter users are debating his skill, and even calling for him to run for president.
TV critics and Jeopardy fans are split on whether his success is thrilling or boring.
In a recent, column in Variety, TV critic Daniel D'Addario argued that Mr Holzhauer's achievement was "a thrilling achievement and deadly dull television".
Andy Saunders, who operates the independent site called The Jeopardy Fan, argues that Mr Holzhauer is good for the game and is making it even more exciting.
"There will be people who will try to emulate him," Mr Saunders hopes.
Though Jeopardy is hugely popular, its history was rocky. The show survived two cancellations.
After current host Alex Trebek was hired in 1984, the "cerebral" test of wits wasn't an easy sell and producers resisted pressure to dumb the show down.
Data from Nielsen, cited by AdAge, indicates that an average of 10.3 million viewers tuned in during the first 12 days of Mr Holzhauer's run.
The show is now considered so iconic that its host's recent announcement of his cancer diagnosis was national news.
"I wouldn't say anything about Jeopardy has surprised me, other than Alex Trebek continuing to show up to work during his chemotherapy," Mr Holzhauer wrote in an email to the BBC.
"What a consummate professional."
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The continuing row over a controversial new Hungarian media law, which its critics claim represents a full-scale assault on press freedom, inevitably overshadowed the launch of Hungary's first ever six-month term in the European Union presidency. | By Jonathan MarcusDiplomatic correspondent, BBC News
It is a moment for Hungary to be in the European spotlight, to try to shape the EU's agenda. But what if the country concerned is seen by some as falling short of the liberal values espoused by other European Union countries?
The centre-right Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban enjoys an unprecedented two-thirds majority in parliament, enabling it to make radical changes to the country's institutions. For Mr Orban and his government this means modernisation - in the case of the media law, sweeping away old legislation and introducing a range of new measures intended to clamp down, for example, on racist and anti-Semitic material.
The whole row has inevitably become highly politically charged. But there's no doubt that the national public media is being concentrated, slimmed down and is now managed by government appointees. Many broadcast journalists fear that at a time of looming job losses, this is not a good moment to say things that the government might not like. The economic pressures are real enough.
But the government's protestations that it has the best of intentions are greeted with scepticism by journalists from newspapers who do not follow the government's political line.
Gabor Horvat is the deputy editor of the centre-left daily Nepszabadsag.
It's the country's biggest selling quality broadsheet.
"Just imagine a situation," he says, "where you are living in a neighbourhood where a guy is walking around with a huge gun but he says he's a good guy and will not use it. How worried would you be?"
"The government too", he argues, "says that it's a good guy and will not use the massive fines in the new media law to stifle views it does not like."
But he feels that key constitutional checks and balances are being removed.
'Stereotypes'
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sought to defuse the crisis by accepting that EU legal experts will now go through the new legislation with a fine-toothed comb.
If they find things that are contrary to European law, he says, then changes will be made.
But he clearly does not believe that this will be necessary. He has also sought to dampen criticism by insisting that the implementation of the new law will be closely monitored. If some of its critics' worst fears are realised, then, he says, changes will again be contemplated.
For now this seems to have satisfied the EU.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso welcomed this commitment, and expressed his confidence in Hungarian democracy and in its government's support for the rule of law.
Both he and Mr Orban do not want to see Hungary's presidency undermined by this issue.
However, just a little pointedly perhaps, Mr Barroso made it clear that Hungary too had to take every step at home to make sure that there were no doubts about its democratic credentials.
Indeed some officials here in Budapest believe that the media row has just been an excuse to revive old prejudices and to cast doubts on the strength of Hungary's relatively young democracy, only 20 or so years since the end of communism.
Junior Minister for Government Communication Zoltan Kovacs is in no doubt. "These types of stereotypes," he told me, "are still with us and its very hard to fight against them.
"Look, it's really a kind of an insult when I have to prove that I am a democrat. I think in all measures we share the common values of the European Union."
Those close to the government in Budapest feel their country is attracting fire for its particular approach to managing the economic crisis. Big European multinational firms are critical of the crisis taxes that have been imposed on key sectors like energy and banking.
Hungary, the government's supporters believe, has enemies and that in part is why the media issue has been seized upon abroad.
Come what may, the implementation of these new Hungarian media laws is going to be closely watched as much in Brussels as in Budapest.
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The short gap between the Baftas and the Oscars this year has barely left Joaquin Phoenix enough time to wash his multi-use tux. | By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter
The Joker star is just one Hollywood actor currently hot-footing it from London to Los Angeles in time for the Academy Awards on Sunday.
This year's ceremony is being held earlier than usual in an attempt to combat falling ratings. The slew of other awards ceremonies over several months was thought to be damaging interest in the Oscars, which mark the conclusion of awards season.
Oscar-ologists have been closely studying the nominations list for trends, patterns, quirks and clues about who might win what.
1. Scarlett Johansson has joined a rather exclusive club.
She is only the 12th person to receive two acting nominations in the same year.
Johansson is nominated for both best actress and best supporting actress for her performances in Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit respectively.
The other 11 people who've been nominated twice in acting categories at the same Oscars ceremony include Sigourney Weaver (in 1989), Al Pacino (1993), Emma Thompson (1994), Jamie Foxx (2005) and, most recently, Cate Blanchett (2008).
But none has ever won in both their categories.
2. It's been 15 years since the winner of best actress and best picture were in sync.
Very rarely does the winner of best actress also star in the winner of best picture - the last one who did was Hilary Swank in 2004's Million Dollar Baby.
That's unlikely to change this year.
Renée Zellweger is the favourite to win best actress for Judy, which isn't even nominated for best picture.
3. Cynthia Erivo could end up with a massive EGOT.
In fact, if the Harriet star wins an Oscar to go with her Emmy, Grammy and Tony awards she'll become the youngest EGOT winner in history.
The 33-year-old would take over from the current record holder Robert Lopez, who completed the quad in 2018 at the age of 39.
Erivo has two chances to do this on Oscars night - because she's nominated for both best actress and best original song (she co-wrote Harriet's anthemic original song Stand Up.)
4. If Sam Mendes wins best director, it'll be the biggest gap between two directing wins in Oscars history.
The newly-knighted Sir Sam first won in 2000 for American Beauty, but could triumph again at the 2020 ceremony with his hugely successful World War One epic 1917.
Before now, Billy Wilder recorded the biggest gap, winning his two best director trophies 15 years apart for The Lost Weekend (1945) and The Apartment (1960).
5. There's a competing couple in the best picture category.
Directors Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, who began dating in 2011 and have a child together, are up against each other for the top prize.
Gerwig's nomination for Little Women and Baumbach's for Marriage Story make them the first director-couple to go head-to-head for best picture.
This almost happened in 2009, when James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow both had films nominated - but they had divorced some 18 years earlier.
Gerwig and Baumbach are nominated in slightly different categories for writing (best adapted screenplay and original screenplay respectively), so at least that slightly eases the tension over the dishwasher.
Coincidentally, both their films star Laura Dern, who is nominated for best supporting actress.
6. Having said that, Little Women and Marriage Story are both long shots for the top prize.
That's partly because it's unusual for a film to win best picture without a nomination for best director, which neither Gerwig nor Baumbach have.
It's not impossible, however.
Last year, Green Book triumphed without a director nod for Peter Farrelly. Prior to that, 2013's Argo was the last to win without a nomination for its director Ben Affleck.
7. Toy Story 4 could better the Oscars record it set with Toy Story 3.
The prize for best animated feature was introduced in 2001, and since then only one sequel - Toy Story 3 - has won.
So a victory for Toy Story 4 would make it not just the second sequel to win best animated feature, but the second to win within its own film series.
8. Parasite has already broken a record and it could break another if it wins.
It's the first Korean film to receive a best picture nomination, and only the sixth film to be nominated for both best picture and international feature film.
That list of previous double nominees includes last year's Roma, 2012's Amour and 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
9. Jonathan Pryce brings a dose of reality to best actor.
The Two Popes star is the only nominee in the category who plays a real-life figure - Pope Francis.
The others, Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas, Adam Driver and Joaquin Phoenix, all portray fictional characters.
(Admittedly, Pedro Almodóvar wove some of his own experiences into the film director character played by Banderas in Pain & Glory.)
There's more reality in the best actress category - Renée Zellweger plays Judy Garland, Cynthia Erivo portrays anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman and Charlize Theron plays Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
10. Magazines are fertile ground for film ideas.
Two of this year's awards season hopefuls were based on single magazine articles.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was inspired by a 1998 feature in Esquire magazine by journalist Tom Junod, who wrote a profile interview with the children's entertainer Fred Rogers.
Hustlers, meanwhile, was based on a 2015 investigation in New York magazine by Jessica Pressler.
Despite both films being nominated across awards season, including at the Golden Globes, sadly only Beautiful Day registered on the Academy's radar.
Jennifer Lopez will have to rely on a future film to score her first Oscar nomination.
11. The average age of the supporting actor nominees is 71.
That's considerably older this year than the average age of all previous winners in this category - which is 49.
This time around, Brad Pitt is the youngest at 56, nominated alongside Tom Hanks (63), Joe Pesci (76), Al Pacino (79) and Sir Anthony Hopkins (82).
Having been around a while, it's perhaps unsurprising that all five of these greedy guts already have an Oscar - Pitt's came as a producer on 12 Years A Slave while the others won for acting.
12. Birdman could act as a benchmark for 1917.
Oscar pundits keep a close eye on best film editing every year, because there's a strong correlation between being nominated in this category and ultimately winning best picture.
It's notable, therefore, that 1917's momentum for the top prize comes despite the lack of an editing nomination.
Only one film since 1980 has won best picture without a best film editing nod, which was 2014's Birdman.
Interestingly, Birdman and 1917 already share something in common - both films appear to have been shot in one continuous take. Neither actually were, which, ironically, shows how skilful the editing must have been.
13. Ford v Ferrari is the first motor racing film to get a best picture nomination.
This might not sound particularly interesting, but there's a surprisingly large number of racing films which have missed out in the past - such as Rush, Grand Prix and Days of Thunder.
Senna wouldn't have been eligible for best picture as it would have been in for best documentary, but it wasn't even nominated for that.
Ford v Ferrari (which is titled Le Mans '66 in some countries) is nominated but is highly unlikely to win.
"It faces tough competition," acknowledged Christopher Smith of Motor1, "but beating tough competition is what the movie is all about."
14. Netflix have doubled their chances of winning best picture this year.
The streaming service pinned all its hopes (and money) on Roma in 2019, campaigning hard for the best picture win which eventually went to Green Book.
They fielded far more films for awards season this year, such as The King, Dolemite Is My Name, The Two Popes and The Laundromat (a film about which the less said the better).
However, two of their films in particular, The Irishman and Marriage Story, are nominated for the top prize.
It may well be that the Academy is still not ready to allow a streaming service to win best picture. But if any Netflix title can win them over, you'd think it'd be a Martin Scorsese gangster film starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci.
15. Neither of the two favourites for best picture have nominations in the acting categories.
This may be down to Parasite being perceived as a film with an ensemble cast, where no performance is easily singled out for a leading actor category.
The absence of 1917 in the acting categories is perhaps more surprising as George MacKay appears in the entire film.
16. Songwriter Dianne Warren's nod in best original song (for I'm Standing With You from the film Breakthrough) is her 11th Oscar nomination.
Her others include LeAnn Rimes's How Do I Live (from Con Air), Aerosmith's I Don't Want to Miss a Thing (from Armageddon) and Faith Hill's There You'll Be (from Pearl Harbor).
But, as we said last year, she has still never actually won.
In fact, she is now the most Oscar-nominated woman without a win in history, which keeps the heat off Glenn Close a little longer.
Sir Elton John's nomination in this category comes 25 years after he won it for Can You Feel The Love Tonight? from The Lion King.
17. Judy Garland never won an Oscar. But she was supposed to.
She was widely expected to win for 1954's A Star is Born, and even had cameras set up around her hospital bed (she had just given birth) to capture her speech.
Grace Kelly won instead for The Country Girl - one of the biggest upsets in Oscars history.
The cameramen rapidly dismounted the equipment around Garland and left.
So if Renée Zellweger does win best actress, at least that will indirectly mark some form of (late) Academy recognition for Garland, more than five decades after she died.
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The Deputy First Minister Martin McGuiness has told the BBC that Sinn Féin will put forward a motion calling for an investigation into the Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI) when the assembly meets again in January. | The botched scheme could end up costing the taxpayer up to £400m over 20 years.
Mr McGuinness said it was clear that the RHI scheme had resulted in an "enormous financial scandal".
But, he said his party would not pull the plug on Stormont.
Cross-community support
He also called the day's business in the assembly a "shambles" after a vote of no confidence in First Minister Arlene Foster was voted down.
Some 39 MLAs voted for the motion, but it needed 'cross-community support' to pass.
"From my perspective there is an urgent need to restore credibility in the institutions," Mr McGuinness said.
"It is very, very important that the highest level of government - i.e the executive office, that we find a way forward to resolve the quite clear difficulties that are there."
Step aside
Mr McGuinness suggested that an independent investigation and a credible working relationship between Economy Minister Simon Hamilton and Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir could help to cut back on that figure of £400m.
He also called again for Mrs Foster to stand aside while an investigation takes place.
"In my conversation with Arlene Foster a number of days ago I outlined, not an instruction, but what I would do if I were in her position," he told BBC News NI.
"Number one is accept a robust investigation and number two is step down for, what I believe, would be a short period."
On a separate matter, Mr McGuinness commented briefly on his health.
"I am being attended to by a wonderful group of doctors and nurses from our health service and I think that's all I have to say about it at the moment," he said.
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Drew Llewellyn bought his first Bitcoin in 2011. | By Meabh Ritchie Newsbeat social media producer
Over the years, he has paid up to £899 ($1,100) and as little as £14.70 ($18) for one Bitcoin, as the value of the digital currency has dramatically risen and crashed.
But now, for the first time, one Bitcoin has topped the value of an ounce of gold.
And Drew, who owns 18, is pretty happy about it.
On Thursday night, the value of a Bitcoin closed at £1,036 ($1,268) while an ounce of gold stood at $1,233.
"For years critics have said Bitcoin will never last - that its value will drop, that it will never be adopted, and even that it's some kind of ponzi scheme," he told Newsbeat.
"Today's all time high is another example of how, year on year, Bitcoin is becoming more prevalent, reliable and valuable."
What can you buy with Bitcoin?
Drew, who works in IT in North Lincolnshire, has used his Bitcoin to buy everything from a steam link (to play video games), to Amazon vouchers, to computer parts.
He has an app called a Mycelium Wallet on his phone to buy things with Bitcoin, and a secure Trezor Bitcoin Wallet which stores most of his Bitcoin on a separate device (see photo below).
But Drew mainly sees his stash as a savings pot and tries not to spend too much.
So he's hoping this latest rise in the value is just the start of a bigger trend.
He lost money in 2013, when the price crashed. But overall, says that he's made around £6,500.
Bitcoin is a type of digital currency that operates completely online - the coins you see are just a novelty.
Each Bitcoin is basically a computer file which is then stored in a 'digital wallet' app on a smartphone or computer.
People can send a Bitcoin (or part of one) to a digital wallet, and to other people, and each transaction is recorded in a public list called a blockchain.
Like Drew, many people like the fact there's no central bank and that you own your money: "Any Bitcoin I own is entirely mine, it can never disappear."
He points to people who lost huge amounts of money in Venezuela and even in Britain, during the financial crisis.
But he acknowledges that there are risks. He tells Newsbeat:
"It's a trade of freedom to have your own money, as opposed to taking your money and putting it in a bank that might crash."
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Changes to the NHS always make headlines. | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
The public has a strong emotional attachment to it, like in no other country.
Using its services is the way that millions of us interact with the public sector every day, often at times of great anxiety, sorrow, or joy.
When it comes to election time, it is often at the top of voters' lists.
So, no surprise there is always tension and trepidation in Westminster when governments want to make changes.
That's why so much has been written about ministers' plans to shift things around in the NHS. You can read an outline of them here.
The most important question, of course, is not what is behind the changes, but whether patients will see any difference to the care they receive in the real world in the years to come.
But it is worth, for a second or two, pondering the political journey the changes represent.
Lansley reforms
First, much has been made of the draft law finally burying the changes that were brought in by the coalition government and its former Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley.
Even their introduction was painful, causing massive political problems in the early days of the coalition.
As one wily observer of the intersection between health and politics recalled: "It was as if Lansley didn't have a political idea in his head and Cameron didn't have a practical idea in his head."
The changes turned GPs into consumers, picking and choosing health care on all our behalf.
Irrespective of whether the principle of increasing competition was a good one, the way the changes were brought in ratcheted up the level of bureaucracy in the health service in England, which was described by one source simply as often "a waste of time".
The coming legislation will unpick all of that.
Local health care providers and local councils will have to work together in future, as many of them already have been doing under a new structure.
And, of course, because it is the public sector, a new acronym is born - the ICS or the Integrated Care Systems.
The hope is this will have a significant impact in the real world, allowing local authorities and local clinicians to work together more easily.
Instead of worrying about commercial contracts, they will be worrying about patients.
And inside the NHS, there's a belief that the pandemic has shown exactly how this can work.
Groups of GPs, Primary Care Networks (known as PCNs, obviously), have been vital to the success of the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine.
The principle is they are small enough to understand and know their patients, but big enough to make the economies of scale.
They had already been introduced, however, and to an extent the NHS has, for several years, been bringing in changes like this that found ways of working around the changes that the Lansley reforms had made.
In practical terms though, Thursday's burying of the Lansley reforms is a legal consequence of some changes that were already under way.
And in fact, when Jeremy Hunt was the health secretary a couple of years ago, it was clear that the Tories were already resolved to ditch the coalition's changes, with the NHS's blessing.
Market forces
So far, so not that surprising. What is somewhat surprising, or at least ironic, though is that the proposed changes mark a pretty big move away - at least in emphasis - from the use of competition and the private sector.
A Tory government that believes in free markets is presiding over a shift away from that and the response to it has been rather muted.
The use of market forces in health was, for a long time, a hotly contested argument in politics - not just whether or not the private sector should be used to fill in the gaps, but whether, as New Labour believed, competition between different health care providers and choice for patients was a big part of the answer to the NHS' woes.
It is worth noting that Tony Blair's health adviser was none other than Simon Stevens, now, of course, the chief executive of NHS England.
The private sector will still be able to provide services to the NHS. This is not a moment where they are being booted out.
But what one former minister described as the "ginger of a bit of competition" is fading, leading another source to talk about the "conversion of Simon Stevens".
Take control
There are also nerves at how the powers the secretary of state will have will read like "back to the future".
It is no secret that central government was frustrated, particularly in the early days of the pandemic, that actions they wanted to take at the top of the chain did not always have the desired effect at the end.
With the NHS' operational independence, sources complained at the time that the health care system was like a "black box".
As a result, the health secretary, as part of these changes, will regain some of the powers that were passed over to the NHS years ago.
The temptation to take control is clear, particularly in the current circumstances.
But one former minister warns of a two fold risk: "You can't run the system from Whitehall and it's politically foolish. He'll end up with every problem on his desk."
The defenders of the changes point out that the solutions being espoused have changed because the health service's problems have changed.
When competition and choice were the mantra, the NHS' problem was lengthy waiting lists.
Private sector efficiency and competition was seen as a way of driving them down.
Now the issues of demand and an ageing population means the gap between health and care is becoming smaller and smaller.
With pressure on budgets too now, one source said: "The pressure isn't to compete, it has to be to collaborate."
Despite some of the rhetoric around, however, the changes outlined on Thursday do not provide a long term solution to how we care for the elderly.
Espousing more working together between doctors, social care and councils could help, but it is not the big answer to the problems laid so bare during the pandemic.
That solution is still promised, but still some way off.
But the promises are not insignificant.
There will be changes to the NHS in England that will make a difference to how one of the most important organisations in the country is run.
The government will, in law, correct what many see as the mistakes of a decade ago - formalising some changes that have already been made in practice on the ground.
And a Tory government is stepping away, to an extent, from competition and the private sector with barely a political murmur.
With the pandemic and the Tories' traditional political vulnerability on the NHS, they have little appetite right now for something more radical, nor the political space to make the argument.
But the plans don't seem likely to add up to a dramatic turnaround for the NHS that will either suddenly tear up the system, or make all its problems quickly go away.
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Fifty staff at a west Devon dairy have been made redundant after production ended. | Staff at Wisemans in Okehampton were warned in March that the plant was to close in April.
Owners Robert Wiseman are transferring operations to a larger plant in Bridgwater, Somerset.
It is believed 19 out of the 69 strong workforce are relocating from the plant, which the company said was too costly to run.
The company also has distribution depots at Pensilva, Bristol, Amesbury and Northampton.
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The safety of bus passengers is a top priority, Guernsey's bus operator has said, after a man was sentenced for damaging a ticket machine in a vehicle.
| The 31-year old man was ordered to do 60 hours of community service and fined £1,450 this week for destroying the machine on a night bus during a drunken argument over fares in December.
Lee Murphy, from CT Plus, said the firm had measures in place to ensure safety.
They included CCTV and specially selected staff, he said.
Interim operations manager Mr Murphy said the vandalism attack was an "incredibly isolated event" which "came out of nowhere".
He said: "In terms of drivers, we have the right guys with the right personalities to deal with this. We also have a controller at the terminus.
"If anything happens on any vehicle, we are there within minutes."
The vandal admitted committing criminal damage.
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Does Bob Diamond have reason to feel miffed? | By Laurence KnightBusiness reporter, BBC News
Only enthroned last January as Barclays chief executive, his resignation last week was reportedly forced by the displeasure of the Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King at his bank's role in rigging Libor.
For those who are still unfamiliar with it, Libor - the "London Interbank Offered Rate" - is an ultra-important benchmark interest rate used in the financial markets.
It is calculated every day by the British Bankers' Association (BBA), and is supposed to reflect the average interest rate at which 16 big international banks based in London can borrow from each other.
So why should Mr Diamond feel miffed?
After all, his bank has agreed to pay a £290m fine after admitting it sought to manipulate Libor for years.
Mr Diamond was in charge of Barclays' investment banking division - the one responsible for the manipulation - at the time.
Panic
Well, here are three possible reasons:
Firstly, Barclays has claimed that it was practically forced to under-report its own borrowing cost to the BBA in 2008, because almost ever other bank was also doing so at the time.
Barclays' fear in September 2008 - a time when the global financial markets faced total meltdown - was that its supposedly less dishonest (and therefore higher) reported borrowing cost stuck out like a sore thumb.
To put it another way, if the publicly available Libor data suggested Barclays was having particular trouble borrowing, it could have put the bank (unfairly in Barclays' opinion) on the wrong end of the financial panic, which could even have forced it to be nationalised like RBS.
Secondly, it has emerged that the US and UK financial regulators, including the Bank of England, were well aware since May 2008 that all the banks, not just Barclays, may have been under-reporting their borrowing costs to the BBA's Libor committee.
In other words, the Bank of England had known for years about this problem, but apparently only chose this month to force the removal of Mr Diamond.
Thirdly, the manipulation of Libor by Barclays, and potentially others, since 2007 might even have done us all a favour.
By making it look like they were not in as much financial trouble as they really were, London's banks may have helped to stem the panic in 2008, although the Bank of England might complain that it also hid from regulators how bad things had already become in 2007.
Moreover, the lower Libor rate would have resulted in a lower interest rate being charged on the billions of pounds worth of loans to British businesses and homeowners that are linked to Libor.
Disgust
Yet all these defences miss the real Libor scandal: Barclays did not just admit to having lied about its borrowing cost during the financial crisis.
The bank's traders had apparently been rigging Libor since as early as 2005, long before the crisis began, purely in order to increase their profits (and presumably their bonuses) - although ironically their misbehaviour did not necessarily mean that Barclays as whole earned bigger profits.
Given how arcane the subject matter is, it can be hard for outsiders to appreciate just how shocking this revelation may be for the people, such as Sir Mervyn, whose job it is to regulate the financial markets.
The Libor rate is part of the bread-and-butter of high finance. It is used to calculate the payments on literally hundreds of trillions of pounds worth of financial contracts - several times global GDP, the value of everything produced on the planet in one year.
For regulators to discover that the banks' traders had stooped so low has been a bit like the moment it emerged that News of the World reporters had hacked Milly Dowler's mobile, or that MPs had claimed expenses for the cost of doing up second homes.
In other words, the rigging of Libor may have pushed attitudes at the highest levels to the point of disgust.
What is more, it is hard to see how Barclays could have succeeded in this endeavour without the active or tacit involvement of many of the other 15 banks involved in setting Libor.
When the BBA calculates the Libor rate each day, it disregards the four highest and the four lowest submissions it receives from the 16 banks, and then bases the day's Libor on the average of the remaining eight.
It means that if Barclays is acting alone, it has very little ability to influence the Libor rate.
If it submits a rate that is way too high or too low, its submission will simply be disregarded. And even if it does submit a rate within the middle eight, the Libor rate will only rise or fall by one-eighth of the amount by which Barclays misreports its own rate.
Tipping point?
All of this raises two big questions:
Firstly, if Barclays is only one of many banks to have misbehaved in this way, is it about to rat on all the other banks involved?
Indeed, could it be that Barclays has actually got off lightly with its fine, because it was the first to come clean? Is the gathering storm about to hit the other banks even harder?
And let's be clear who these "other banks" could be - not just the big UK banks, but also the major US, Canadian, Japanese and continental European lenders. This is a global scandal.
Secondly, if the rigging of Libor has indeed created a sense of disgust among the authorities, have we then reached a tipping point?
Already, the Serious Fraud Office has seemingly reversed course and opened a criminal investigation into Libor.
Could this be the beginning of a much more aggressive exposure of the misbehaviour of bankers during the last decade, going well beyond Libor?
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We've all heard the stories of Bitcoin millionaires. | By Justin RowlattChief environment correspondent
Elon Musk is the latest.
His electric car company Tesla made a paper profit of more than $900m (£646m) after buying $1.5bn (£1bn) -worth of the cryptocurrency in early February.
Its high profile support helped pushed the price of a single Bitcoin to more than $58,000.
But it isn't just the digital asset's price that has hit an all-time high. So has its energy footprint.
And that's caused blowback for Mr Musk, as the scale of the currency's environmental impact becomes clearer.
It also helped prompt a series of high profile critics to slate the digital currency this week, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
President Biden's top economic adviser described Bitcoin as "an extremely inefficient way to conduct transactions," saying "the amount of energy consumed in processing those transactions is staggering".
It's unclear exactly how much energy Bitcoin uses. Cryptocurrencies are - by design - hard to track. But the consensus is that Bitcoin mining is a very energy-intensive business.
The University of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) studies the burgeoning business of cryptocurrencies.
It calculates that Bitcoin's total energy consumption is somewhere between 40 and 445 annualised terawatt hours (TWh), with a central estimate of about 130 terawatt hours.
The UK's electricity consumption is a little over 300 TWh a year, while Argentina uses around the same amount of power as the CCAF's best guess for Bitcoin.
And the electricity the Bitcoin miners use overwhelmingly comes from polluting sources.
The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that about two-thirds of it is from fossil fuels.
Huge computing power - and therefore energy use - is built into the way the blockchain technology that underpins the cryptocurrency has been designed.
It relies on a vast decentralised network of computers.
These are the so-called Bitcoin "miners" who enable new Bitcoins to be created, but also independently verify and record every transaction made in the currency.
In fact, the Bitcoins are the reward miners get for maintaining this record accurately.
It works like a lottery that runs every 10 minutes, explains Gina Pieters, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and a research fellow with the CCAF team.
Data processing centres around the world race to compile and submit this record of transactions in a way that is acceptable to the system.
They also have to guess a random number.
The first to submit the record and the correct number wins the prize - this becomes the next block in the blockchain.
At the moment, they are rewarded with six-and-a-quarter Bitcoins, valued at about $50,000 each.
As soon as one lottery is over, a new number is generated, and the whole process starts again.
The higher the price, says Prof Pieters, the more miners want to get into the game.
"They want to get that revenue," she tells me, "and that's what's going to encourage them to introduce more and more powerful machines in order to guess this random number, and therefore you will see an increase in energy consumption," she says.
And there is another factor that drives Bitcoin's increasing energy consumption.
The software ensures it always takes 10 minutes for the puzzle to be solved, so if the number of miners is increasing, the puzzle gets harder and the more computing power needs to be thrown at it.
Bitcoin is therefore actually designed to encourage increased computing effort.
The idea is that the more computers that compete to maintain the blockchain, the safer it becomes, because anyone who might want to try and undermine the currency must control and operate at least as much computing power as the rest of the miners put together.
What this means is that, as Bitcoin gets more valuable, the computing effort expended on creating and maintaining it - and therefore the energy consumed - inevitably increases.
We can track how much effort miners are making to create the currency.
They are currently reckoned to be making 160 quintillion calculations every second - that's 160,000,000,000,000,000,000, in case you were wondering.
And this vast computational effort is the cryptocurrency's Achilles heel, says Alex de Vries, the founder of the Digiconomist website and an expert on Bitcoin.
All the millions of trillions of calculations it takes to keep the system running aren't really doing any useful work.
"They're computations that serve no other purpose," says de Vries, "they're just immediately discarded again. Right now we're using a whole lot of energy to produce those calculations, but also the majority of that is sourced from fossil energy."
The vast effort it requires also makes Bitcoin inherently difficult to scale, he argues.
"If Bitcoin were to be adopted as a global reserve currency," he speculates, "the Bitcoin price will probably be in the millions, and those miners will have more money than the entire [US] Federal budget to spend on electricity."
"We'd have to double our global energy production," he says with a laugh. "For Bitcoin."
He says it also limits the number of transactions the system can process to about five per second.
This doesn't make for a useful currency, he argues.
And that view is echoed by many eminent figures in finance and economics.
The two essential features of a successful currency are that it is an effective form of exchange and a stable store of value, says Ken Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He says Bitcoin is neither.
"The fact is, it's not really used much in the legal economy now. Yes, one rich person sells it to another, but that's not a final use. And without that it really doesn't have a long-term future."
What he is saying is that Bitcoin exists almost exclusively as a vehicle for speculation.
So, I want to know: is the bubble about to burst?
"That's my guess," says Prof Rogoff and pauses.
"But I really couldn't tell you when."
Follow Justin on Twitter.
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One of the dairy firms targeted by farmers in blockades in the summer has announced it is to increase the amount it pays for milk.
| Dairy Crest, which is supplied by 1,000 dairy farmers, will pay 29p a litre on contracts for liquid milk from November - an increase of 3p.
The company's plants in Derbyshire and Gloucestershire were the subject of blockades in July over prices.
Dairy Crest supplies about 15% of British milk production.
The firm said the rise was "much needed" because of "higher on-farm costs that all dairy farmers are currently experiencing following the difficult weather conditions this summer".
Dairy Crest, the maker of Cathedral City cheese and Country Life butter, will also pay more for Davidstow cheese.
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When the tannoy blasts out a "Team 700" alert at Elmhurst hospital in Queens in New York City it is because a "crash" team is needed immediately. Someone is going into cardiac arrest. | Jon SopelNorth America editor@bbcjonsopelon Twitter
In normal times that would happen maybe once a week. Yesterday, during the course of one 12-hour shift, there was a Team 700 announcement nine times. Not one of the patients survived, according to the young doctor I spoke to.
She is one of the residents in emergency medicine, and nothing in her training could have prepared her for the harrowing scenes she is witnessing on a daily basis at the epicentre of the epicentre of this outbreak. The hospital, which has a capacity of 282 beds, is now housing over 500 patients, according to the latest email sent round by the hospital administrators.
And though it has not been declared as such, it is the first Covid-19 hospital in the country. Yes, the ER still functions - but all other patients who were admitted have been moved out. Only those who are gasping for breath are given beds.
In the initial stages of the outbreak, it was the worried well who would be turning up in this poor neighbourhood, Elmhurst. Now everyone is sick. Really sick. Half of the patients are undocumented, and don't speak English - they work in restaurants and are hotel chambermaids. They are not "plugged in". The calls for social distancing have passed them by.
And this medic, in her early 30s, tells me the stress is intense. Nearly everyone who arrives at the ER needs to be intubated and put on a ventilator. That would normally be a job done in the Intensive Care Unit. But they are overloaded.
These people need "pressors" - meds that will keep blood pressure up. And that is a job normally done by specialist nurses. But there aren't the nurses to do it. So people who are untrained are having to do it. "How can I not worry when there are patients not getting the care that they need?"
And she says it is not just the old who are falling prey to this. "There are patients in their 30s and 40s with no pre-existing conditions. Equally, we had a 90-year old man the other day who was brought to the ER after he had fallen at home. He had a broken leg - but he also tested positive for coronavirus - even though he was exhibiting no symptoms."
It is a confounding virus, is Covid-19.
The hospital has been given double the number of ventilators that it originally had - but they are already being fully utilised and they need more. All are being used - and the peak of the curve is still weeks away. And she talks rather quietly when she describes a situation where not all of the people who need a ventilator are getting one.
I spoke to this young doctor after she had got home from a 12-hour shift. We were connected by a mutual friend. She said she would call me after she'd put the washing on, cooked herself something to eat, and done a bit of life admin. The mundanities of life co-exist alongside the high stress, life-and-death environment that she is living in.
She says she is not frightened for herself. "I am not worried about whether I fall ill. I will be fine. I'm young, and fit. I had a bit of a sore throat last week, and may well have had it. But the medics who are older, who have more complex medical histories are very nervous." A dozen of her co-workers, though, have fallen ill.
Elmhurst the epicentre - by the numbers
In normal circumstances, if you see a patient who you think is infectious you put on PPE (personal protective equipment), and when you have finished your consultation you take off the overalls and mask and they are incinerated. At Elmhurst you start your shift wearing PPE, and you will not remove it all day - after all, everyone you're seeing is infectious.
That has alleviated some of the pressure on kit. Also, the fact that this hospital has been the first hospital to be so much in the front line, and has had so much publicity, has meant that supplies have been forthcoming. She says, though, that her N-95 mask has to last a few days. But what happens to the hospitals further down the road? Will they get the kit they need?
I ask her whether she has had time to reflect on the enormity of what is happening. "A bit," she says. But says that will probably come later. She says the focus right now is on doing her job, and saving as many lives as she can.
As she tells me this, the thought strikes me that if you're driving a car on a mountain road and the brakes fail, you haven't got time to ponder the vicissitudes of existence, you're just trying to get down the mountain safely.
This woman is calm, self-assured and having to be mature beyond her years.
Then she opens up on the bits that are hardest about what she is doing, and concedes that much of what she has gone through will need a lot of processing afterwards
"The most anxiety I have is around ventilator allocation. Seeing people die is not the issue. We're trained to deal with death. Nor is it the volume of people dying. The issue is giving up on people we wouldn't normally give up on."
She described a patient being brought in from an old people's home. He was already on a ventilator - and was "chronically vent dependent". His prospects were never great. But all she could see before her was the ventilator - and not the patient.
"When he came in we were so desperate for vents," she told me, "all I wanted to do was get the ventilator off him. I wanted to get that vent off him to allow it to go to someone else."
Playing god is not what this young woman thought she would be doing at this stage in her career.
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The Lancet could not be clearer on the obesity problem: Action is needed - and needed now.
The world-renowned medical journal has devoted a large chunk of this week's issue to the problem.
A series of articles published by researchers from across the world are calling for more to be done. In effect, it is a call to arms for governments and society as a whole.
But how did we get here and what is the solution? | By Nick TriggleHealth correspondent, BBC News
No-one noticed at the time, but the 1960s was probably the turning point for what has become the obesity epidemic.
As the world embraced the era of free love, they also began eating more.
Although in truth, the foundations had probably already been laid during the first half of the 20th Century when people started using cars more and doing less physical jobs.
But this was also accompanied by a decrease in food consumption because of shortages during and after the two world wars.
By the swinging 60s the food chain had recovered and within a decade obesity started rising.
At first it was mainly limited to the rich countries, but today it is sweeping through low and middle-income countries as well.
In fact, it is getting so bad that experts are beginning to question the ability of the individual to take responsibility for their own actions because of factors such as the increasing availability of cheap, fast food.
Harry Rutter, of the National Obesity Observatory, says: "In practice it is easier for people to gain weight than to lose it. Increasing fatness is the result of a normal response, by normal people, to an abnormal situation."
'No country has escaped'
An estimated 500m people across the world are now classed as obese. In the UK, one in four are. Across the Atlantic it is even worse - a third of adults are obese.
Tonga has a particular problem among its female population with seven in 10 women obese.
But even in countries such as Japan and China, which hardly saw any movement in obesity initially, more and more cases are being registered.
"We are seeing an obesity and chronic disease crisis," says Professor Boyd Swinburn, one of the world leading experts in obesity, who is based at Deakin University in Australia. "There is no country that has escaped."
And because obesity is linked to a host of health problems, from diabetes and heart disease to cancer, the burden for health systems is becoming worrying.
In the UK, experts predict obesity levels will nearly double in the next 20 years. That could mean an extra £2bn a year has to be spent by the NHS to cope.
The government - or at least the one in London - is responding by working with industry to encourage healthier lifestyles.
Firms have signed up to a series of pledges to reduce the salt, sugar and fat content of food and to pursue more responsible marketing initiatives.
But for many experts this is not enough. The Lancet researchers have argued tougher action - such as legislation - is needed to tackle the issue.
One of the papers said steps such as a tax on unhealthy food and drinks and traffic light labelling on food would be so beneficial for health that they would save money in the long run.
Some countries - albeit a minority - have started to look at some of these measures.
In September, Hungary will introduce a tax on pre-packaged foods containing high salt and sugar content, such as crisps and chocolates.
Finland and Norway have already taken the step.
The question now is how many more will follow them?
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An SNP MP has hit out at party "infighting" after claims of "back-stabbing" and "politically motivated smears". What is the Joanna Cherry row all about, and what are the wider issues for the party? | By Philip SimBBC Scotland political reporter
What's the background?
The current row stems from complaints from a number of former members of Ms Cherry's staff.
One former caseworker wrote in the Sunday Herald about complaints of bullying against the Edinburgh South West MP and her office manager.
Another former employee said that "almost all her staff" had written letters of complaint to Commons authorities over their treatment.
Ms Cherry rejects these accusations, describing them as "lies" and "spurious", saying that "I am not and never have been a bully".
On the one hand, this could be seen as a matter of office dispute resolution. But on the other, it's politics. Ms Cherry has certainly chosen to cast it that way, talking about "politically motivated smears", which she says "arise from SNP infighting".
She has retweeted and "liked" messages from supporters online which use a hashtag reading "I stand with Joanna". And then on Wednesday, she tweeted that "at least the Conservatives do their back-stabbing in public".
So what is this "infighting" all about?
Equal rights
There is a simmering row within the SNP about trans rights and gender identity.
In fairness, this isn't just an issue for one political party - it's something that affects the whole of society. But it currently seems to be gripping the SNP more than others, possibly by dint of the party's position in government in Scotland.
The Scottish government is planning reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) to allow people to "self-declare" their legally recognised gender.
Some ministers see the current system - which requires transgender people to produce medical reports and satisfy a panel that they have gender dysphoria - as intrusive and outdated.
But others are urging caution. A group of 15 SNP politicians - including several junior ministers, and MPs including Ms Cherry - signed a joint letter urging the government not to "rush" into "changing the definition of male and female".
They are concerned about the potential implications for women - in contrast with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has declared that transgender rights are "not a threat to me as a woman".
This is an intensely divisive issue. For example, look at the Dundee councillor who quit the SNP complaining of "institutional transphobia" - who was also suspended from the council for two months over "offensive" and "abusive" tweets on the topic.
Ms Cherry has not been right at the forefront of the debate - certainly not to the extent of, say, MSP Joan McAlpine - tweeting at one point that "where there are competing interests there must be civilised and open debate".
But by signing the GRA letter she was seen to have picked a side, and she also got into a row with activists over claims she "misgendered" someone on Twitter.
It was the MP's complaints of being abused on social media which led to the Sunday Herald article, with the employee involved saying that they "couldn't stay silent anymore" when they saw the "hypocritical" posts.
The road to independence
It won't be a surprise to anyone that SNP activists enjoy debating independence.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her team have a plan: they want to have a new referendum before the end of the current Holyrood term, subject to an agreement with the UK government.
They have drawn up an economic blueprint, the "growth commission", and set up a new campaigning strategy complete with social media hashtag.
The leadership's approach is, broadly, accepted - but it is not the only one within the party.
Some members want to go faster. Some MPs and party executive members, straining at the leash, have called for a new referendum within the year.
There are also divisions over the economic plan, which were underlined at the most recent SNP conference when Ms Sturgeon was defeated over an amendment to currency proposals. It was a minor rebuke, but a rebuke nonetheless.
Ms Cherry is among those who have suggested alternative approaches. At another party conference, in October 2018, she suggested that "it doesn't have to necessarily be a referendum" that would trigger independence. She also criticised the "softly softly" approach of the growth commission.
In calling for "an end to SNP infighting", the MP specifically linked the issue to independence, saying: "The timetable for indyref2 has been announced, our restiveness is at an end, with unity and civility we will win."
Leadership ambitions
The other way the row has been cast is as evidence of Ms Cherry's apparent leadership ambitions.
The MP "liked" a post on Twitter by the journalist Kenny Farquharson, where he linked to a piece speculating about Ms Sturgeon's departure from office and Ms Cherry's prospects of succeeding her.
So, is this really all about the top job in the SNP?
For a long time, Ms Sturgeon's position has been unassailable. And to be clear, it is still secure - far more so than that of almost any other political leader in the UK.
But the fact is, people are now talking - both behind closed doors and more openly - about life after her leadership. She has been asked about it in the Holyrood chamber and in national TV interviews - making it clear each time that she's not planning on going anywhere.
As for Ms Cherry, the fact she would rather Scotland were independent aside, her Edinburgh South West seat is at risk of being abolished at the next election after a Westminster boundary review. She has been tipped as a potential challenger to Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson in Edinburgh Central, so a move to Holyrood could well be in the offing.
She certainly has ambitions, having previously been a candidate to lead the Westminster group.
And in each of the potential schisms facing the party, listed above, it seems like Ms Cherry is on the opposite side from Ms Sturgeon. On the urgency of holding indyref2 as quickly as possible. On the currency plan. On trans rights.
Is this a case of reading too much into minor differences? Perhaps. Maybe it really is just a matter of office politics, rather than national politics.
But Ms Cherry is the one fuelling the talk of "back-stabbing" and "infighting", which is why scrutiny like this persists.
The whole row has chiefly been interesting because of how unusual it is. The SNP has been an incredibly tight unit in recent years, resisting rebellions even as fractures tear through the other mainstream parties.
But like the other mainstream parties, the SNP is a big tent. In particular since its surge in membership after the 2014 referendum, the party includes many passionate people with quite different, strongly-held views, united by the overarching cause of independence.
In a big political movement like this, splits are fairly inevitable. The real test is how they are dealt with and managed.
Listen to more analysis of the row on the BBC's Podlitical podcast
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By all accounts, it should have been a triumphant moment for Donald Trump. The brutal leader of the Islamic State, Abur Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a US raid in northern Syria - a climactic moment following the steady erosion of IS's power in the region. | Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
Instead, the episode became another pointed illustration of the perils of the president's confrontational style of governing and the bitter partisanship into which the US has descended.
It began with Mr Trump's Sunday morning announcement of the successful raid. His opening comments were pure Trump - celebrating the way al-Baghdadi died "like a dog" and marvelling at how he was able to see the operation unfold "as though you were watching a movie".
It stood in contrast to Barack Obama's solemn evening announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death, although that should not be surprising at this point. Mr Trump has said that his conduct is "modern-day presidential" - and his blunt, frequently casual language is part of that package.
When pressed by reporters, however, Mr Trump's attitude turned more incendiary. He criticised European allies, calling them a "tremendous disappointment" for not doing more to take possession of IS prisoners. He celebrated his immigration ban for select majority-Muslim nations as a way to protect the US from Islamic militants.
He also claimed that Baghdadi's death was "the biggest" - bigger than the 2011 US raid that killed 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden, which took place during the Obama presidency.
Flouting tradition
Bin Laden was a recurrent theme in Mr Trump's remarks. He said that in a book published in 2000 that he had pointed out that the Al-Qaeda leader "had to be killed before he knocked down the World Trade Center" but that "nobody" had heeded his warning.
"If they would have listened to me, a lot of things would have been different" the president lamented. (In fact, Bin Laden was a US target for years before 9/11, and Mr Trump never made such a statement in his book, The America We Deserve.)
The president also revealed that, in a break with tradition, Democratic leaders in Congress - including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff - were not informed ahead of the raid.
"We were going to notify them last night, but we decided not to do that because Washington leaks like I've never seen before," he said.
The president acknowledged that he had informed some Republicans in Congress, including Senate Intelligence chair Richard Burr and Senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent Trump supporter who had been critical of his recent Syrian policies.
Mr Trump also praised Russian and Turkish officials on Sunday, while acknowledging that he had given them advance warning of a US operation in the region - a move that did not go unnoticed by Democrats.
"The House must be briefed on this raid, which the Russians but not top congressional leadership were notified of in advance, and on the administration's overall strategy in the region," Ms Pelosi said in a press statement. "Our military and allies deserve strong, smart and strategic leadership from Washington."
The following day, on his way to a speech and fundraiser in Chicago, Mr Trump elaborated on his decision to exclude the current House intelligence chair - who also happens to be leading the impeachment investigation into the president.
"I've watched Adam Schiff leak," Mr Trump said. "He's a corrupt politician. He's a leaker like nobody's ever seen before."
Political mileage?
Prior to launching the Bin Laden raid, Barack Obama informed leaders of both parties in Congress. Some, such as the Republican then chairing the House Intelligence Committee, said they had been in touch with the White House regarding its Bin Laden efforts for months.
The Bin Laden raid has, in fact, sparked numerous charges of Washington hypocrisy since Sunday morning.
Byron York, a conservative writer for the Washington Examiner, noted on Twitter the marked difference between Ms Pelosi's response to the strikes on Bin Laden and Baghdadi. In the former, she "saluted" Mr Obama, while she reserved such praise only for "military and intelligence professionals" in her statement about the latter.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post published an entire article detailing the many times Mr Trump attempted to deflect credit away from Mr Obama for Bin Laden's death.
It is difficult to gauge at this point what, if any, political benefit Mr Trump will reap from al-Baghdadi's death. Mr Obama saw only a temporary bump in his approval ratings following the Bin Laden strike, although his campaign touted the accomplishment repeatedly during his 2012 re-election campaign.
Despite Mr Trump's insistence, Baghdadi is hardly the US household name that Bin Laden was. The president has, however, had been the subject of sharp bipartisan criticism in the weeks since his sudden withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria presaged a Turkish military operation against US-allied Kurds in the area.
While Democrats remain unmoved, dispatching the IS leader could assuage some Republican concerns about the president's Syria policy.
"What I see happening in Syria, makes sense to me," Senator Graham said in a White House conference after the Baghdadi announcement. "Now I understand what the president wants to do. He wants to reduce our footprint and lower our costs. And he is right to want to do that."
It could turn out that the raid bolsters Republican support, infuriates Democrats and leaves the US public sharply divided. In other words, more of the same in the Trump presidency.
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Same-sex couples where one partner is not a US citizen say they fear the prospect of being forced to live apart. While gay marriage is permitted in a small number of US states, federal law prevents same-sex partners from sponsoring their spouse's visa and allowing them to stay in America. | By Rajini VaidyanathanBBC News, Washington
"It was amazing. It was what I'd always imagined," says Joshua Vandiver, reflecting on the day he married his boyfriend Henry Velandia.
The couple, who met in Princeton, had been together for four years before they tied the knot in Connecticut this summer. But, unlike most newly-weds, the post-honeymoon glow is tinged with a feeling of fear about their future.
"I'm very scared that Henry could be torn away from me," says Mr Vandiver. "It's a very frightening thing."
The couple are waiting for the verdict of an immigration judge, who has the power to send Mr Velandia back to his home country, Venezuela.
Mr Velandia's US visa has expired, but he is unable to qualify for a spouse visa, because the couple are in a same-sex marriage.
"We really believe that it is unconstitutional, and it is causing so much damage to many couples like us," says Mr Velandia.
Not recognised
While same sex marriage is legal in five states across America, plus the District of Columbia, the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma), which became law in 1996, says that other states and the federal government do not have to recognise these unions.
Doma defines marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife".
"Doma means I can't sponsor him for residency," says Mr Vandiver. "If we were a straight couple then the I130 [the form to petition for a relative's visa] would be approved, and Henry would immediately be removed from deportation proceedings."
The pair have started an online campaign and petition, calling for the law to be changed to allow same-sex partners to sponsor their spouse's visa.
Mr Vandiver and Mr Velandia are not alone in their plight, says Lavi Soloway, a New York-based immigration lawyer who is representing them.
He says he is currently working with a dozen couples in a similar predicament, but estimates that there are several hundred individuals across America in the same situation.
"The most important thing we're doing right now is trying to bring this to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security so they can take action to stop the deportation of gay and lesbian partners," says Mr Soloway.
President Obama has called for Doma to be repealed, and an act has been put before the House of Representatives calling for the law to be changed to allow same-sex partners to be sponsored for US visas.
The Uniting Families Act (2009) has 135 co-sponsors, but with a Republican majority set to take control of the House of Representatives when the new Congress convenes in January, it is unlikely to become law.
The Democratic House leadership has indicated it considers repeal of the so-called "Don't ask, don't tell" measure, which prevents openly gay people serving in the military, to be a greater priority than repeal of Doma.
Politicians who oppose a repeal of Doma include Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, who has filed two motions to defend it.
Groups such as the Family Research Center believe in upholding Doma, arguing that the law should recognise only traditional definitions of marriage and family.
There are a number of lawsuits pending which challenge Doma's legality.
In one case, District Judge Tauro in Massachusetts ruled that the legislation was unconstitutional, a decision which is currently being taken to appeal by the Department of Justice.
Until the law is changed, the White House accepts that it is the job of the justice department to uphold Doma.
Josh Vandiver will learn early next year whether or not Mr Velandia will be deported. The former has already ruled out the option of starting a new life outside the US.
"We're not going to leave America. I believe very strongly that this is a reasonable request that I'm making as an American to sponsor my spouse," Mr Vandiver says.
"Our life is here together, and we are continuing to work for change here."
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In Pakistan's prestigious medical schools, female students outshine and outnumber their male counterparts. However, many do not end up as practising doctors - and now there are calls to limit their numbers, the BBC's Amber Shamsi in Islamabad reports. | Twenty fourth-year medical students are learning how to examine a patient with a throat infection. Today's lesson is as much about patient care as it is the anatomy of the throat.
The patient is real, a woman, and the instructor invites several of the female students to examine her, since cultural sensitivities dictate that she does not want to be inspected by a man. The instructor has his pick, since there are 17 women and three men in this group of students.
It is almost as if men are an endangered species in Pakistan's medical colleges.
'Catching a husband'
The government body that regulates the medical profession, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), says more than 70% of medical students are women.
Competition to get into these medical colleges is tough - at one college I was told that they receive 10,000 applications for a 100 places. In the more prestigious colleges, students must get 90% grades or more in order to be considered.
I ask one male student why the women were outshining the men. He is in his fifth year, specialising in ear, nose and throat.
"Boys go out, hang out with their friends," he says. "Girls can't go out as much, so they stay at home and rote-learn."
In other words, perhaps the success of women students is not so much their own hard work, it is embedded in the culture of keeping girls at home.
And government figures suggest most of these bright female undergraduate doctors do not actually go on to practise. Only 23% of registered doctors are female.
Hot ticket
The vice-chancellor of the prestigious Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto medical university in Islamabad, Dr Javed Akram, says that girls are more focused on excelling academically than boys.
At the same time, he accepts that some female students are more keen on catching a husband than on pursuing a career.
"It's much easier for girls to get married once they are doctors and many girls don't really intend to work as professional doctors," he says.
"I know of hundreds of hundreds of female students who have qualified as a doctor or a dentist but they have never touched a patient."
Privately, many doctors - both male and female - tell me that a medical degree is an extremely hot ticket in the marriage market.
To confirm this claim, I visit the Aisha Marriage Bureau run by Kamran Ahmed and his wife. Business is so good they are opening their second branch in Islamabad.
Mr Ahmed says his best clients are mothers seeking doctor wives for their sons. "In social gatherings, it's very prestigious to introduce your daughter-in-law or wife as a doctor."
And he says if a young female doctor is even a little good-looking, then finding a match for her is a breeze. "By the way, if you know of any single doctor girls, please let me know. I have boys who are looking," he adds in a cheeky aside.
But the "doctor wife" is more than a trophy: her absence from hospitals has serious implications on the healthcare system of a poor country like Pakistan.
The government spends millions of rupees on subsidies per student - yet there is a serious shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas where women prefer to be examined by female doctors.
'More women-friendly'
Dr Shaista Faisal is an official with the PMDC whose research into the subject led the council to try and introduce a limit on the number of women being admitted to medical colleges.
When news of the "quota" on male-female admissions broke in the local media it quickly drew flak and controversy. But the PMDC insists it is the only solution.
"It's not a quota. We want 50% of admissions to be for males and 50% for females," Dr Faisal says, a little defensively.
"It's not discrimination. I don't think we're allowing boys who don't study to get into medical schools. This shortage of doctors is the biggest challenge to Pakistan's health system."
Human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar strongly disagrees. "The wrong here is that women are being discriminated against here for being too smart."
Mr Akbar has filed a petition in court challenging the decision to introduce the "quota". He calls it unconstitutional and says the government should encourage women to stay in the profession instead.
"The answer is that they have to make the working environment more women-friendly rather than saying, no, you can't be a doctor because you end up leaving the profession."
Columnist Fasi Zaka also believes that the government has the wrong end of the stick.
"Yes, doctors are leaving, but the restrictions should be at the point of exit rather than entry." He suggests asking those who fail to practise to reimburse the government the large sums it costs to train them.
Back at the medical school, two starry-eyed female students tell me they are determined to become doctors. But if they were asked to choose between their careers or their families, which would it be?
"I'd try to convince them," says 20-year-old Eliya Khawar. "But if they aren't, I'd choose family."
Her classmate Manza Maqsood concurs. "Family. In our culture, family always comes first."
Everyone seems to agree on the diagnosis of the problem, but not on the cure. Maybe, it's time to introduce a quota for women with pushy families.
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