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Education secretary Michael Gove's nine-year-old daughter has been withdrawn from her ballet classes over fears she was becoming worried about her weight. So how exactly do you tackle such a touchy subject with children? | By Kathryn WestcottBBC News Magazine
Times columnist Sarah Vine, who is married to England's education secretary, revealed this week that their daughter refused to eat on the day of her ballet classes and insisted on wearing a smaller leotard.
The self-consciousness of a pre-teen is something many parents are only too aware of and the dreaded question of "Am I too fat?" can leave many lost for words. Even a carefully phrased response can provoke prolonged silences or slammed doors.
Fears that focusing attention on a child's size might make them overly self-conscious, cause them to obsess about their appearance, or even lead to an eating disorder may cause parents to shy away from the topic.
There is no single strategy, but there are "common sense" ways to deal with such a touchy issue.
First, you have to talk about it
Some parents think that the less said the better but there is no barrier to talking about things with your child, says Andrew Hill, professor of medical psychology at the University of Leeds's institute of health sciences.
"It's not easy," he says, "but if questions are raised, don't duck them. Be engaged. The key thing is the 'why'. I would want to know why this behaviour is suddenly occurring. Is it something the child has seen on TV, or has someone said something at school - maybe something subtle but hurtful. These concerns are often symptoms of other events - sort these out and the other behaviour will likely moderate itself."
A child's weight concerns, he says, often fluctuate and can be temporary.
Girls of a particular age - coming up to puberty - do compare themselves with others in the class, he says. The most rapid change for a girl's body is growth associated with puberty and there could be massive differences within a single class.
Girls, on average, double the amount of body fat as they go through puberty. Boys' body composition changes, but in a different way: they tend to put on more muscle, he says.
"When girls compare themselves, they are at different points of their physical development. Talking to them is a positive and reassuring way to deal with it. Let them know that in a few years' time, those physical differences would have reduced. The key is not to make them self-judgemental."
Don't be alarmed
A parent should not overreact if a child asks them whether they are fat, says Paul Gately, professor of exercise and obesity at Leeds Metropolitan University. "There are parents who are absolutely gobsmacked. It's the dreaded question that's come when they are not prepared. But their reaction might cause a child to think "what have I unleashed?" says Gately.
Many parents, he says, will "stick their heads in the sand" or tell a child there isn't a problem. But, he says, if there is a problem, the child will get teased in school and end up mistrusting the parent.
"The teasing and bullying of overweight children is endemic in our schools," he says.
"If a child has mentioned it, the issue is not going to go away. Parents need to have an open-ended, conversations in which the children do the talking. The child needs to understand it from their perspective," he says.
Be prepared
With child obesity on the rise, parents who have concerns that their child might be overweight could prepare in advance for the conversation that will inevitably come, says Gately, who runs weight management services in partnerships with local authorities. "Parents will benefit because they won't be in a responsive situation," he says.
Parents should modify their environment in advance to make it more healthy, so when the question comes up, they can say that the whole family has been living a healthier lifestyle, and this needs to be built on. Emphasise the entire family's eating and exercise habits and commit to change - but not dramatic ones, says Gately.
Bringing up the weight issue
Is it wrong to broach the issue if a child doesn't bring it up first? The difficulty, says Hill, is if a parent sees it as an issue and wants to raise it. "Judge it - if they don't want to talk about it, don't run the risk of it becoming a contentious issue. If concerns persist, talk to a teacher or GP."
Mary George from eating disorder charity Beat says that if a parent is worried about a child eating too much or, at the other end of the scale, too little, then seek advice from a GP or nurse. If parents are worried this might have an effect on a child's self-esteem, "there are ways around it - say the whole family is going for a general check-up".
Keep it casual
A parent who feels the need to broach the subject could gently ask a child if they would feel more comfortable if they were in a healthier weight range, says psychologist and writer Amanda Hills. "If they say yes, then offer to help them by cooking more healthy food - but encourage their input as this puts them in control."
The key is to guide and not try to control your child's eating habits, she says.
"Many eating disorders involve the feeling of not being in control," says Hills. "Keep the issue of food casual. Treat it as if it's fuel for a car - don't say that some food is good or some is bad. If a parent does feel the need to point out that something is not the best choice, do it in a low-key way - don't obsess about it."
The key is not letting food become a battleground.
Deflect the issue
"We are hearing of younger and younger children being conscious of their body image," says Mary George of charity Beat. "It's another bit of childhood that is disappearing."
If a youngster brings it up, don't avoid it try but try to deflect it, says George. "Offer praise and encouragement in other areas - tell them they are kind, helpful, happy and generous - steer it away from body image."
Don't make jokes
Parents often don't realise that making a joke about a child's weight can affect them for life, says Hills. "A father, for example, should never call a daughter 'chubby'. A husband shouldn't say negative things about their wife's weight, and vice versa."
Parents must be careful not to be critical of their own weight or that of others, says George. "Even really young children - four- or five-year-olds - will take this on board."
Mum's not on a diet
Research shows that a child is affected by their mother's self-image and the way she treats food, says psychologist and writer Amanda Hills. In the US, this has been referred to as "thinheritance".
"It is absolutely crucial that mum should never say she is on a diet," says Andrew Hill, a body image and behavioural specialist. "All of the people I have dealt with for eating disorders had a mother - or a father - who demonstrated obsessive behaviour around food."
If a mother feels like cutting down, do it in a low-key way, he suggests. "Say something like, 'Mummy's not going to have a big potato because she's finished growing.' But mum should never serve herself a separate meal."
But Andrew Hill says depending on the situation, there might not be a problem with a parent being seen to be managing their weight. "If a parent is going to Weight Watchers, for example, why hide it - it usually means they are overweight and they are trying to manage it."
The key is not to obsess about it, he says.
Active learning
If a child is concerned about their weight, parents need to create a situation in which children are "active learners", says Andrew Hill, in which they learn from their own mistakes. They need to build self-confidence and self-competence, and parents need to give them the opportunity to go out with their friends and exercise - rather than focusing on their weight, he says.
Set the nutritional agenda
Children consume about 60 to 70% of their food energy at home, so parents set the nutritional agenda, says Hill.
"Older children have more and more liberty and financial power - the key is to get them through adolescence so that they are confident and can make choices about how they prioritise, because later on they will make choices based on their own perception."
Beat's Mary George warns against giving children low-fat food. "Children need a greater percentage of fat in their diet than adults," she says.
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook
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The man who lead the campaign to bring the Tour de France to Yorkshire is to receive an honorary degree from the University of York. | Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, planned this month's Grand Depart which attracted two and a half million spectators.
He will receive his doctorate during a ceremony at the university later.
South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela and Yorkshire Sculpture Park founder Peter Murray were honoured on Thursday.
The university also gave honorary degrees to Prof Ahmed Zewail, who earned the 1990 Nobel prize in chemistry for his work in femtosecond science, and author Mairi MacInnes.
Former BBC controller Roly Keating will also be honoured later.
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The sun was burning brightly when Ahmed arrived in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, on a deportation flight from the US earlier this year. The tropical trees swayed slowly in the warm wind, oblivious to his anxiety and the torturous months that led to this moment. | By Layla MahmoodJournalist
It was a city this 32-year-old man had last seen as a 10-year-old boy.
"It was surreal. On the one hand: 'I am free'. But on the other: 'I am here,'" he says.
Released in March from immigration detention, where disease and threats were allegedly rife, he had been sent to a city ravaged by decades of civil war and terror.
He told me his story but asked for his real name to be withheld as he feared being targeted by the Islamist al-Shabab group because of his work warning young people in the US about the dangers of recruitment by Somali militants.
'TB contracted in detention'
Six months earlier, in a small town in Minnesota - which is home to the largest population of Somalis living in the US - it was dawn when Ahmed was driving his daughter to nursery.
He noticed a large vehicle with tinted windows beginning to follow him.
It seems officers from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had been watching him closely and, after getting him to pull over, he was shackled and taken into custody.
It was the start of a nightmare which would see him shifted between 10 detention centres in the US over the course of six months.
At some point, he caught active tuberculosis.
According to another deportee, who was sent back to the The Gambia in March, this is not unusual. One detention centre was even nicknamed the "TB unit" following an outbreak of the disease, he told me.
One guard reportedly admitted that his colleagues refused to work there.
Not that the officers appeared to have much sympathy for their captives, according to Ahmed.
"They mistreated us, they beat us up and they tortured us," he recalls.
Fellow Somali deportee Anwar Mohamed, 30, alleges they all experienced abuse: "Being maced with the gas. Being threatened to be killed.
"While we were shackled they were just throwing us against the wall and on the ground."
Ice says it takes all allegations of abuse very seriously, and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any such actions.
"Through an aggressive inspections programme, Ice ensures its facilities meet the required detention standards," Ice spokesman Brendan Raedy in response to the allegations about abuse and conditions in detention centres.
"Ice provides several levels of oversight in order to ensure that detainees in Ice custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments," he added, saying detainees could file grievances that would be independently reviewed.
Last December, Ice dismissed a report published by a US human rights group detailing allegations of physical, sexual and verbal abuse after a failed deportation flight to Somalia via Senegal as "categorically false".
Teenage conviction
So how did Ahmed, who arrived in the US as a refugee, end up back in the country he had successfully fled more than two decades before?
In short, a teenage conviction for selling drugs.
Ahmed served three-and-a-half years behind bars - a period of time which, he says, allowed him to finish his high school diploma, take college courses and became a local imam.
But the worst was yet to come. Once he had finished his sentence, he was placed in immigration detention.
"Fifty days can feel like 50 years in there," he says.
So when they put a release form in front of him, he signed it. Later, he would discover it was in fact a deportation order, waiving his rights.
Ahmed, who had no passport or documents to prove he was Somali, was not the only one to make that mistake.
"Attorneys, Ice, even judges were telling Somalis: 'Don't fight your case, just sign your removal order, you'll never be sent back to Somalia,'" says immigration lawyer John Bruning.
At the time, it seemed the advice was accurate as the East African country was still engulfed in violence, and US officials appeared to be less willing to deport those who had committed more minor crimes.
More about Somalia:
What is more, fighting the case would mean longer in the detention centre, says Mr Bruning.
"So a lot of people never fought their case, they just signed and gave up their rights, thinking that they would still be protected.
"Now we see that is not the case."
US President Donald Trump's administration has ramped up deportations, with federal data revealing the number of Somalis deported from the US rose to 528 in 2017 - almost triple that of 2016.
But that is only the start: there are plans to deport 4,000 Somalis, according to former Somali ambassador Ahmed Isse Awed.
Mr Bruning believes some people are even being moved to conservative states where the "judges are much more inclined to deny their claims".
He points to Somali asylum seekers being detained at the border in San Diego, California, but then moved to states with a "99% denial rate".
'Outsiders in danger'
That means there will be a lot more people like Ahmed, who says another flight with deportees from the US arrived in Somalia last week.
Immigration lawyer Malee Ketelsen explains that some have had their orders for a decade or longer.
During this time "they are getting married, having children, they're getting educated, they're contributing to US society and then, under the Trump administration, they've decided they have to go", she says.
More on US immigration:
Ahmed had started two non-profit organisations for young Somalis, aimed at preventing gang violence and Islamist extremism. He had married and had two children.
Now he is in Mogadishu, 8,200 miles (13,000km) away from his family, in a country which the US State Department says you should not travel to because of "crime, terrorism, and piracy".
Indeed Ice did not even provide a direct flight to Mogadishu - flying instead to neighbouring Kenya and transferring deportees to a private airline for the last leg of the trip. The Ice spokesman would not be drawn on whether this was due to safety concerns.
Mr Mohammed, also a child refugee, was deported after serving an eight-and-a-half year sentence for burglary.
He was initially grateful to have escaped two years in a detention centre but the reality of life in Mogadishu has now sunk in.
"Just the other day someone literally got killed in front of us. It's lawless out here," he says.
Ahmed says that the fact that they are seen as "outsiders" also puts them in even more danger.
"They think we are informants. They think we are spies. There is so much mistrust for us," he says.
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A man has admitted the murder of his wife who was found stabbed to death with multiple injuries. | Tracy Stonehouse, 51, died at an address in Coralin Close, Chelmsley Wood, Solihull, just after 01:25 GMT on 6 April.
A post mortem examination revealed she had suffered multiple stab wounds and other injuries to her head and neck.
Arthur Stonehouse, 73, of Coralin Close, pleaded guilty to her murder at Birmingham Crown Court earlier.
He was remanded in custody ahead of his next appearance on 6 August.
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The world chess championships are under way in Russia, where Vishwanathan Anand defends his title. His success is widely credited for the growing popularity of chess in his home country, India, the nation widely believed to have given the game to the world. | By Rajini VaidyanathanBBC News, Mumbai
He's been described by some as the Sachin Tendulkar of chess, a role model to thousands of Indian school children and arguably one of the country's most successful sportsmen.
Vishwanathan Anand is India's biggest chess star, and was the first in the country to secure the game's highest honour, by becoming a grandmaster.
Anand gained international acclaim in 2007 after he became world chess champion, a title he has now won three times.
The 42-year-old from Chennai is currently in Moscow, competing against Israel's Boris Gelfand for his fourth title. The score is currently three points apiece after six draws.
His moves are being watched closely by chess enthusiasts in his home country, where the games are being screened on a national sports channel and large sections of the sports pages are devoted to it.
Chess has a particularly strong following in Delhi, Calcutta and across the south of India. The state of Tamil Nadu, where Anand is from, was even in the bidding to host the current world championships, losing out to Russia.
Chess has risen in popularity in the years following Anand's first triumphs, says Bharat Singh, the secretary of the All India Chess Federation.
"The game has really grown in the past six or seven years particularly," he says, highlighting the fact the number of grandmsters (GMs) in India has tripled in that time frame, to 27 GMs today. The number of international chess masters in the country has also tripled (to 76) in the same period, and India is in the world top 10 in rankings.
The latest Indian to pick up the grandmaster title is 15-year-old Vaibhav Suri, who won the accolade last month.
Success has been equal for both men and women in India, Koneru Humpry is the country's most accomplished female player, who holds the world number four spot.
The opening up of India's economy in 1991 enabled more players to travel abroad and play tournaments and achieve rankings, says Devangshu Datta, a chess commentator and journalist.
"Increasing internet use is another reason why India jumped several levels so fast and why Anand and his generation broke through. From the early 90s onwards, you had databases where, at the click of the mouse, you could work your way through millions of games."
The game is growing at the grassroots, and is now on the curriculum in the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, and is taught at schools across the country. Chess coaching clubs are springing up at a fast pace too.
"We get as many as 50 calls a day from interested parents," says Dhanajay Ramraje, who runs the Chanakya Chess Club in Mumbai. Ramraje coaches children in the game at their houses and in schools, charging as much as $30 (£19) an hour.
At one such session, a group of children is gathered around a dining room table. Their eyes are fixed in concentrated, accompanied by hard stares at the black and white pieces in front of them. As they take turns to move them across the board, the silence in the room is punctuated with the tapping of clocks, and the occasional gasp.
"I like chess because it helps my brains sometimes," says Namya Kumar, who is six years old and one of the three girls in the group. She is competing against four-year-old Aadya Tekukar, who started playing at the age of two and despite being so young, has already won trophies.
Looking on is Aadya's mother, Dr Shubangi Tekukar, who says: "Chess helps you take good decisions in your life.
"It is a game in which there are many moves and out of that you choose one best move. Like that, in your life also chess helps to improve your ability to make the best decisions."
The educational value of the game is why many Indian parents are encouraging their children to play the game, says Singh. Indians place a huge emphasis on their children's learning, and chess is seen as a welcome addition.
"The general perception is that if you play chess it will help with your studies, especially in logical reasoning, mathematics, physics, and there are surveys which prove that chess players are better mathematicians," he adds.
Another reason why some say Indians have an affinity for the game is because it is widely believed it began in the country.
"I think we Indians have some kind of a knack for the game, maybe it's because it originated here," says Manuel Aaron, India's first international chess master, who is writing a book on the history of the game.
One theory is that chess evolved from the Indian game Chaturanga, meaning four units of an army, which began in the country in the 6th Century.
"It was not an ordinary people's game," says Aaron. "It was a game to train people in the art of warfare. The pieces were elephants, horses, camels and foot soldiers, symbols of the army."
Many people also believe the Mughal emperor Akbar played live chess in the courtyard of his palace, Fatehpur Sikri, in Agra.
Legend has it he would sit in a high place, and watch real animals and soldiers move around a giant board, says Aaron.
Today chess is attracting more money and corporate sponsorship, but it is still difficult to make a full-time living from playing the game, says Pravin Thipsay, another chess grandmaster.
Thipsay, who runs coaching workshops, still works in banking and believes more needs to be done to encourage people to take up the game at the top level.
"We've had more world junior champions than any other country... but at a really senior level, aside from Anand, we will struggle to overtake countries like Russia. It'll take 10 to 15 years to do that."
Thipsay says while India has embraced the game, it still hasn't fully accepted chess as a profession.
"Chess players gets a lot of respect from their colleagues, but you cannot make a living out of it. At a senior level it's hard to find someone who could replace Anand.
"At the grassroots, progress is great but progress at the top is not."
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Condor Ferries will return to sailing from Weymouth when the ferry berth is fixed by summer next year.
| The company relocated sailings to Poole in February because of safety concerns about the structure of the berth.
Weymouth Council has agreed plans to rebuild part of the harbour wall.
Operations director Fran Collins said regular fast ferry services to the Channel Islands, and on to St Malo in France, would return to Weymouth from 17 July 2013.
In the meantime the fast ferry services will continue to operate from Poole.
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Anna LeBaron's father, Ervil, was the leader of a polygamous cult responsible for more than 20 murders. The killings continued even after his death thanks to a hit list he had left behind. Here Anna speaks for the first time about how she escaped from the cult - and her hope to "redeem" the LeBaron name. | By Brian WheelerBBC News, Washington DC
"We were taught to live in awe of him as God's prophet, as the one true prophet on Earth."
There is a note of incredulity in Anna LeBaron's voice as she describes her childhood. She speaks slowly and deliberately, as though she can hardly believe it herself.
"We were taught that we were celestial children, having been born from the prophet Ervil LeBaron. And we believed it. Even though we were treated so poorly we still believed we were celestial children."
Anna says she can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she was in the same room as her father. Yet the power Ervil LeBaron had over his followers, which included his 13 wives and more than 50 children, was absolute.
"He used fear to manipulate and control people," she says. "We were absolutely afraid of not doing what we were told. And we didn't have a voice."
Anna has found her voice now. At 48, she shows no outward sign of the traumatised childhood she vividly describes in her new memoir The Polygamist's Daughter.
Anna LeBaron was born in Mexico in what she would later learn was a cult hideout. Separated at an early age from her mother, Ervil's fourth wife Anna-Mae Marston, she grew up on the run from the law.
Shuttled from one overcrowded safe house to the next, she slept on filthy foam mattresses and scavenged for food in dustbins with the other cult children and Ervil's "sister wives".
"We were taught that we were being persecuted because we were God's chosen people and that the world outside didn't understand us," she says.
"That was how they used to explain all the moving in the middle of the night and staying ahead of the law."
The children were used as unpaid labour in the domestic appliance repair shops that were the cult's main source of income - forced to scrub grease and grime from rusty ovens and refrigerators for 12 hours a day during school holidays.
"I watched siblings of mine receive horrific beatings for any type of attitude," Anna recalls. "And these are young kids. They're kids. How much work can you really get out of a 10-year-old, or an 11-year-old, really? You can get work out of them if you are beating them."
The children were not cut-off entirely from the outside world. They were allowed to go to school, though they were not allowed to talk about what happened at home, and were "taught to lie" Anna says.
The girls were the lowest of the low in the cult's pecking order.
"It was a patriarchy, for sure. And the young girls were groomed to become wives of polygamist men that already had wives. We were groomed to accept that and to know that that's where we were headed, when we became of marriageable age."
Marriageable age, in the LeBaron family, was 15, she says. "So when I escaped at age 13 I escaped by the skin of my teeth!"
Ervil LeBaron - the 'Mormon Manson'
Anna did not know it at the time but her father - a powerful, charismatic figure, who at 6ft 4in towered over most of his disciples - was wanted by the FBI and the Mexican police for a string of murders on both sides of the border.
He rarely got involved in the violence himself but ordered his followers to kill anyone - including one of his own wives and two of his children - who challenged his position as God's representative on Earth or who threatened to leave the cult and complain to the authorities.
His followers believed he was receiving his instructions directly from God, having inherited the mantle of prophet from his father Alma Dayer LeBaron.
"When you are so convinced that someone is right, that you are willing to do anything - and even if you disagree, if you are so afraid to voice that disagreement and you just go and do it - that's the ultimate control," Anna says. "And he had that. People did what he said. To their own detriment."
But Ervil did not have a monopoly on divine revelations. Three of his brothers had, at one time or another, claimed to be God's sole representative on Earth.
Ervil had initially been a follower of his older brother Joel but the pair clashed over Ervil's money-making schemes, including a plan to transform Los Molinos, the modest Mexican settlement where the sect's 200 or so followers had set up home, into a beach resort.
Joel kicked Ervil out of his Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Time in 1970. So Ervil started his own sect, the Church of the Lamb of God, and set about eliminating his rivals - starting, in 1972, with Joel.
Using the long-abandoned Mormon doctrine of "blood atonement" which sanctions the killing of sinners to cleanse them of evil, Ervil could claim he was doing his ever-growing list of victims a favour by allowing them to enter Heaven.
God would reveal to Ervil the next victim and he would hand-pick a team of disciples to carry out the hit. The murder plots grew increasingly sophisticated, involving wigs and theatrical make-up, and back-up squads in case the initial plan failed. Refusing to follow Ervil's command was not an option.
"People defied it and many of them paid for that with their lives. And it wasn't until after he died that it kind of started to break up and that power was lost," says Anna.
"However, even from the grave, he was able to control people and their actions and that is just mind-blowing - that from the grave he was able to do that."
Ervil had managed to evade justice in the Mexican courts over the murder of Joel and a deadly commando-style raid on Los Molinos, where the population were stubbornly refusing to accept him as their new prophet.
He was eventually captured by Mexican police and handed over to the FBI in 1979, in circumstances that have never been fully explained. He was later jailed for life for orchestrating the murder of Rulon C Allred, the leader of a polygamous sect in Utah who had rejected Ervil's demands for money and recognition.
Ervil died in Utah State Prison in 1981, after suffering a seizure. But his reign of terror was far from over.
A bloody battle for the succession ensued, with Ervil's chief henchman, Dan Jordan, making an early play for the mantle of prophet - a terrifying prospect for Anna, who had suffered under the tyrannical regime in his Denver repair shop.
Anna was now was living in Houston with her mother, half-sister Lillian and Lillian's husband, Mark Chynoweth, who also ran an appliance store.
Lillian and Mark had been among the most fanatical of Ervil LeBaron's followers but after he was jailed they began to drift away from the cult, joining a Christian church and rejecting his polygamous creed.
When Dan Jordan arrived in Houston to order Anna and her mother to return to Denver with him, the 13-year-old Anna rebelled.
"I could not believe that my mother had been talked back into going back to Denver when we were experiencing a life in Houston that was the most normal I had ever experienced.," she says. "We had lived in the same house for about a year - the longest I had ever lived anywhere - and we were eating food that was purchased in grocery stores. And we were paid to work. We could save up money."
She realised that this might be the best chance she would get to take control of her life.
"It was now or never. And the feelings that I had inside, that bitterness and the injustices that we had experienced, left me with a very strong feeling about not wanting to go back."
She could not have escaped without the help of Lillian, who hid her away in a motel room until her mother had returned to Denver with Jordan.
Anna describes Lillian and Mark as the "heroes" of her story, for taking her in and giving her a chance to change the trajectory of her life.
But their life together would not last. What they didn't know was that in prison Ervil had drawn up a hit list of 50 people he regarded as traitors, buried away in a final, rambling theological tract - The Book of the New Covenants - and that Mark's name was on it.
After Dan Jordan was murdered in an apparent "blood atonement", Mark revealed that he and Jordan had been among a group of followers who had refused to carry out Ervil's orders to bust him out of prison "guns blazing" and so there was a good chance he would be targeted next.
The 38-year-old refused to go into hiding. He opted instead to turn his suburban home into a fortress, but it wasn't enough.
At 4pm on 27 June 1988, he was shot numerous times as he sat in his office chair at Reliance Appliances.
At almost exactly the same time, Mark's brother Duane, owner of another Houston repair shop, was shot dead, along with his eight-year-old daughter Jennifer.
And 200 miles away in Irving, Texas, another of Ervil's former disciples, Eddie Marston - Anna's half-brother - was gunned down next to his pick-up truck within five minutes of the first three killings.
The Four O'Clock murders, as they became known, shocked America. Someone - most likely one of Ervil LeBaron's sons - was working their way through his hit list. The murders took place on the 144th anniversary of the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church.
Anna did her best to comfort Lillian and her six children, while dealing with her own fears.
"I don't think I was a personal target, however, I knew that if something happened, and I happened to be in the way, that I could also be killed. So it was a very frightening time. We were under police protection and it was just scary."
Mark Chynoweth had been the closest thing to a father figure in Anna's life, and she is close to tears as she talks about his death. As a teenager, she read about cult atrocities he had taken part in but insists that was not the man she knew.
"Mark was a kind man. He was generous. And I don't believe for one minute that had he grown up in a normal family setting that he would have done any of the things that he was accused of, on his own.
"He was kind and loving. He was a good father to his children and losing him was very difficult, under the circumstances that we lost him."
In 1997, Anna's half-brother Aaron LeBaron, who had emerged from the succession battles as the One Mighty and Strong prophet, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for orchestrating the Four O'Clock murders. Four other cult members were also jailed for their part in the killings.
By this point, Anna had made a decisive break from what remained of the cult, finding the strength to go away to college and attempt to build an independent life.
She married David, her childhood sweetheart from Houston, who had joined the Marine Corps, and they started a family.
She was determined to break free from polygamy, which she believes leads women to "numb" their emotions.
"I don't believe it's a natural relationship," she says. "Most women will struggle, having to share their husband or their significant other."
It is not a view shared by her mother, with whom she remains in contact, and who stayed loyal to Ervil to the bitter end.
"My Mom still believes in the practice of polygamy as taught by [Mormon founder] Joseph Smith and still lives in a group that practises that, so that is a little bit difficult to process - how that can be something she sticks with even after all the devastation and the damage that it caused to her own children."
Anna battled depression after the death of Lillian Chynoweth, who committed suicide following her husband's murder in 1998.
At first she coped with the trauma of losing so many loved ones by pretending it had happened to someone else. It would take years of painful therapy for her to finally "acknowledge that these experiences are part of my past".
She now believes her father suffered from some form of mental illness for most of his adult life.
"It is sad to me that he was experiencing these things and not able to reach out and get the help he needed. But, of course, when you are the prophet, how much help do you actually think you'll need?"
Ervil's madness, if that's what it was, cast a long shadow over Anna and her siblings.
The book was only closed on the Four O'Clock Murders in 2011, when after 20 years on the run Jacqueline Tarsa LeBaron became the sixth former cult member to be jailed for taking part in the plot.
But Anna is convinced that the blood-letting is now, finally, at an end.
"I have five grown children and if me telling my story was to put me in any danger, or anybody that I loved and cared about, I would never have done this at all. I believe that is 100% in the past and there is no danger at all for me."
She hopes that by telling her story, in The Polygamist's Daughter, she can "help restore relationships in our family, instead of continuing to bring more separation and more fear".
In one passage, she describes a reunion with her half-brother Robert, who shot dead Duane Chynoweth and his eight-year-old daughter. Robert, who was just 17 at the time of the killings, received a reduced sentence for testifying against other family members.
"As I embraced my long-lost brother," she writes, "the emotion I had held inside for years came out in floods of tears."
And despite everything, Anna says she is "very proud" of her family.
"Even people that were involved in some of the most horrific things that happened have gone on to become caring, kind, loving, productive members of society, that just want good in the world," she says.
She hopes that the book's publication will help to "redeem the LeBaron name," which remains one of the most infamous in American criminal history.
But it is also an attempt to reassert her own identity, for so long suppressed by the cult and her father's malevolent legacy.
"Even though that life could have crushed who I am, in my spirit, in my soul, that has not been the last story," she says.
"So I kind of get to have the final word here, in saying, 'This is who I am.'"
The Polygamist's Daughter, by Anna Le Baron with Leslie Wilson, is published on 21 March
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Some 18% of respondents under the age of 30 have had sex fewer than 10 times in the past year, a survey of 2,000 people on websites Mumsnet and Gransnet has found. Among all ages, the figure was 29%. We meet three couples who, while madly in love, fall into this category. | By Claire WilliamsBBC Victoria Derbyshire programme
"Our lack of sex life at the moment is down to me," Amanda, 35, tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.
"I'm so tired all the time because my job is full on and it's full on at home. It's like my libido is tired."
Amanda and Steve have been married for six years.
Watching their 22-month-old son, Elliott, happily marching around the room, they laugh to one another as they explain why they now have sex about once every six weeks.
"Daytime sex and afternoon sex - with a kid around that's not happening," says Steve, from London.
"Even if you put him down for a nap for two hours, you're just kind of like, 'I should probably do other stuff or catch up on some sleep.'"
But it is not just parents having less satisfying sex lives, according to counsellor and sex therapist Martin Burrow, from the organisation Relate.
"We certainly seem to be seeing more people reporting that they are dissatisfied in their sexual relationship," he says.
"Whether that's a cultural shift in people being more comfortable to talk about sex or whether people are having less sex, I'm not sure.
"You can have a successful relationship whether there is sex in it or not.
"Some people don't need to have sex to be happy - some people do."
Jacob and Charlotte, both 23, are very much in love - but sex is not part of their relationship.
"We've been together for four years. We haven't had sex for the last three of them - and we're not planning to," Charlotte says.
She is asexual, though Jacob is not.
"We sort of tried [having sex] to see what worked for the first six months. It really wasn't making either of us happy.
"Jacob doesn't want to be having sex with someone who doesn't want to be having sex."
For some men, this might have been a deal-breaker - but not for Jacob.
"I have a fantastic relationship with a wonderful person," he says. "There are other ways to show affection."
Others, however, are not always as understanding.
Charlotte says: "I don't think I can have a conversation with someone about it without it being implied [not having sex is a] burden that's been put on me, when actually it's a choice I've made.
"It's really sad how some people prioritise sex over happiness."
Thom and Steve, from Bristol, have been together for four years, and got married last year. They have never had sex with each other.
Both identify as asexual and joke that their first date - when they ended up sleeping next to one another - was "one of the best one-night stands we've both had where nothing has happened".
Thom believes society is becoming increasingly sexualised but this is "not reflective of people having more sex".
Although he adds: "There's more pressure to have sex and maybe people are forcing themselves to have more regular sex".
The couple say people are shocked when they say they have never had sex, and often ask how they can love each other without it.
The reply they give is simple: "You can have sex without the love, so why can't love without sex exist?"
For Martin, when it comes to the amount of sex in relationships, "normal doesn't exist".
Some couples, he says, can "reach high levels of intimacy without having sex".
For others, the amount of sex they have will often ebb and flow, affected by things such as having young children, work, fatigue and illness.
Amanda says communication between her and Steve has been the key to having a healthy and strong relationship without regular sex.
"Don't be too disheartened," she advises new parents in a similar position, "because it happens to all of us."
She laughs as she turns to Steve and says: "We will get it back. I promise."
Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 BST on BBC Two and the BBC News channel in the UK and on iPlayer afterwards.
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An hour's drive inland from the French coast, a dozen Vietnamese men nurse tea over a smoking campfire, as they wait for a phone call from the man they call "the boss". An Afghan man, they say, who opens trailers in the lorry-park nearby and shuts them inside. | By Lucy WilliamsonBBC News, northern France
Duc paid €30,000 ($33,200; £25,000) for a prepaid journey from Vietnam to London - via Russia, Poland, Germany and France. It was organised, he says, by a Vietnamese contact back home.
"I have some Vietnamese friends in UK, who will help me find jobs when I get there," he told me. "These friends help me get on lorries or container trucks to go across the border."
Security is much less tight in the nearby lorry park than around the ports further north. But few people here have managed to get past the border controls.
We were told there is a two-tier system in operation here; that those who pay more for their passage to Britain don't have to chance their luck in the lorries outside, but use this base as a transit camp before being escorted on the final leg of their journey.
A Vietnamese smuggler, interviewed by a French paper several years ago, reportedly described three levels of package. The top level allowed migrants to ride in the lorry cab and sleep in hotels. The lowest level was nicknamed "air", or more cynically "CO2" - a reference to the lack of air in some trailers.
A local volunteer in the camp told us that they'd seen Vietnamese and British men visiting migrants here in a Mercedes. And that once migrants arrived in the UK, some went to work in cannabis farms, after which all communication stopped.
Duc tells me he needs a job in the UK to pay back the loan for his journey.
"We can do anything," he says, "construction work, nail bars, restaurants or other jobs."
A report by one of France's biggest charities described smugglers telling Vietnamese migrants that refrigerated lorries gave them more chance of avoiding detection, and giving each of them an aluminium bag to put over their heads while passing through scanners at the border.
No one here had heard about the 39 people found dead this week.
This journey is about freedom, one said.
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YouTube star Jack Maynard and rapper Stormzy are the latest celebrities to discover that ill-judged and offensive things they said years ago on social media can come back to damage their reputations and possibly their careers. | By Ian YoungsArts & entertainment reporter
Virtually every celebrity breaking through today - certainly all those who are as big on YouTube as Jack Maynard is - will owe at least part of their success to social media.
But, as Maynard has discovered, living your life online means opinions you expressed years ago can resurface when you least expect it.
Like when you're in the Australian jungle.
The 22-year-old, whose funny videos have attracted 1.2 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, was kicked off I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here on Tuesday. That was after a series of tweets, most of which date from 2011-13, came to light.
Maynard was between 16 and 19 at the time. In the offending messages, he used homophobic language and referred to friends using the n-word.
His representative has said he is "ashamed" of the posts and realises the language was "completely unacceptable".
Many fans and members of the vlogging community have leapt to his defence.
Meanwhile, some viewers have wondered why Maynard was singled out when questionable tweets from fellow I'm A Celeb contestant Amir Khan have emerged - and the show let the outspoken Katie Hopkins stay a decade ago.
She has voiced her support, writing: "Dear @Jack_Maynard23 - they kept me in, my love. You're an angel by comparison. It's all just noise. Breathe quiet air."
ITV hasn't confirmed why he was removed from the reality show - there have also been reports that he was axed because he sent private messages asking a 14-year-old girl for photos of her in her bra, when he was aged 16.
She has told The Sun he didn't know how old she was at the time.
ITV told the BBC they had no comment on the reports and Maynard's spokespeople have not yet given a response.
He is one of a number of celebrities whose unsavoury public remarks have recently been dredged up.
Stormzy apologised on Wednesday for using homophobic tweets between 2011 and 2014.
He says they were views "that I've unlearned as I've grown up and become a man". He's 24 now.
And last week, vlogging queen Zoella apologised for a number of old tweets about gay people and "chavs".
The posts were from 2009-12, when she was around 19-22. She said she "would never say those things now".
But can such comments be explained away by youthful ignorance and the passage of time?
In a highly personal column, The Sun newspaper's showbiz editor Dan Wootton recounted how he was bullied at school by people using the same language as Maynard had tweeted.
Wootton said "I feel deeply sorry for the millennial generation whose every utterance from their earliest years is archived on the internet.
"But that's not what this situation is all about."
Using such words "was completely unacceptable long before the invention of Twitter, as Jack learned the hard way", he added.
The thing Maynard, Stormzy and Zoella's tweets all had in common was that they all featured homophobic insults.
A spokesperson for LGBT rights group Stonewall said: "It's important that homophobic abuse and slurs are called out. People need to understand that this sort of language is, and always will be, deeply damaging and harmful.
"We also know people can and do change. At Stonewall our mission is to get people to understand the impact that discriminatory attitudes and abusive words have on lesbian, gay, bi and trans people."
And Sarah Davis, a PR manager and fashion blogger, was among those criticising him on Twitter.
David Levin, co-founder of social media agency That Lot, says celebrities should be cut some slack for saying things when they were "young and daft".
"But there's a limit," he says. "Most 10-year-olds would know it's wrong to say something sexist, racist or homophobic. And the fact that they tweeted it makes it worse.
"Celebrities need to realise that journalists are probably trawling through their social feeds right now. And that stupid thing you tweeted is gonna bite you on the arse."
There's one exception, of course: "Unless you happen to be the President of the United States."
Mr Levin has written tweets on behalf of high-profile personalities as well as brands and broadcasters.
"If a high profile individual is about to be in the spotlight for whatever reason, they're encouraged to look back through their feeds and discreetly remove anything that may be taken, or reported, the wrong way out of context," he says.
"Or in more extreme cases, deleted immediately because it was a stupid thing to say."
Growing up in public
PR guru Mark Borkowski says Jack Maynard's actions highlight that there's nowhere to hide for the generation who have grown up on social media.
"Perhaps it proves a degree of abject ignorance and arrogance," he says.
"Past attitudes and social hubris will haunt many, many celebrities who now attempt to plunder celebrity status. They will reach the realisation that fame is toxic fame."
And it shows your social history can be dredged up by anybody - be they journalists or HR people deciding on jobs in other walks of life.
"I tell my own kids, 'Be careful what you post,'" he says. "And I think kids are pretty savvy about it now, and I think this is a fantastic lesson for anybody of the millennial generation to learn that your life is no longer your own."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone launch is expected to be the biggest single upgrade the handset has seen since its launch. | By Leo KelionTechnology desk editor
A revamped design with an edge-to-edge display, facial recognition ID system and advanced augmented reality features is expected.
Several analysts have predicted the asking price for the top-end models will hit new heights too.
In a world in which the smartphone has become ubiquitous, it's easy to forget how much of a surprise Steve Jobs's unveiling of the original was a decade ago, and how divided opinion was about whether it was truly a game-changer.
To mark the occasion, we have picked 10 key moments from its past.
1. 2004: The birth of Project Purple
After the success of first the iMac and then the iPod, Apple began developing a tablet as its next breakthrough product.
But around 2004, ex-iOS chief Scott Forstall recalls having a critical conversation over lunch with chief executive Steve Jobs.
"We were both using our phones and hated them," he told an audience earlier this year.
"We looked around, and like everyone around us has a phone, and everyone looks very angsty as they're using them.
"And Steve said, 'Do you think we can take that demo we are doing with the tablet and multi-touch and shrink it down to something… small enough to fit in your pocket?'"
This prompted Apple's engineers to create a basic contacts app that was constrained to a corner of the prototype tablet's display.
"The second [Steve Jobs] saw this demo, he knew this was it," Mr Forstall said. "There was no question. This was the way a phone had to behave."
As a legal filing would later reveal, by August 2005 Apple's industrial designers had already created a concept form factor - codenamed Purple - that is recognisable as the basis for the iPhone that followed.
2. July 2008: First iOS App Store apps released
There are now well over two million native apps available for the iPhone's iOS operating system, and most owners have several pages and folders worth of the programs.
But for a while, after the first iPhone launched, there weren't enough to fill even a single screen.
That's because third-party developers were initially limited to creating software that ran within the device's web browser. Steve Jobs reportedly believed policing a native app marketplace would be too complicated.
It wasn't until more than a year after the handset went on sale that the App Store was launched.
And history was made on 9 July when Apple made a handful of native apps live in advance of the marketplace opening its virtual doors.
Among them was Moo - a cow sound simulator - from Denver-based developer Erica Sadun.
"I had come from the jailbreak community [in which developers modify smartphones to add capabilities], which put a lot of pressure on Apple to have its own store," Ms Sadun said.
"The App Store completely revolutionised how independent developers could create businesses, monetise their product and present it to a community of people that was larger than anybody had ever dreamed of.
"It created a gold rush that I don't think we are ever going to see again."
3. September 2008: HTC Dream unveiled
It sounds fanciful now, but once upon a time Google's chief executive was a member of Apple's board of directors.
Eric Schmidt did not resign from the post until 2009, but his days were numbered as soon as the first commercial Android phone was announced.
The HTC Dream offered features the iPhone still lacked, including copy and paste, Street View and multimedia messaging.
And while reviews were tepid - suggesting it was "best suited for early adopters" - they recognised the potential of a more open smartphone platform to iOS.
Curiously, the Dream was theoretically capable of supporting "multi-touch" gestures - recognising how many fingers were in contact with the screen - but the feature was disabled.
That was probably because Apple had patented the technology.
When HTC added the feature to a follow-up handset in 2010, Steve Jobs was infuriated.
"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product," he subsequently told his biographer Walter Isaacson.
"I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this."
4. February 2010: Siri app released by SRI
These days, Apple spends millions making adverts starring Siri and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, among other celebrity co-stars.
But when the virtual assistant was first released on iOS, it was a relatively low-profile app from a fairly obscure Californian research institute, which had been part-funded by the Pentagon.
Its business model was to charge restaurants and event promoters a fee for any voice-controlled bookings made for their businesses, and the plan was to release follow-up versions for Android and Blackberry.
But that changed two months after its launch, when Apple bought the technology, reportedly for more than $200m (£150m).
The app remained live on the App Store until October 2011, at which point an upgraded version became an exclusive feature for the newly launched iPhone 4S.
5. June 2010: The first selfie iPhone
When the iPhone 4 was released, reviews highlighting its addition of a front camera focused on its use for video calls rather than self-portraits.
Perhaps that was understandable. Although the word "selfie" had already been coined, it had yet to become commonplace.
And while the iPhone 4 was not the first handset to feature a camera on both its sides - Sony Ericsson did so in 2003 - it can claim to have been a driving force in the rise of selfie culture.
"The iPhone 4 was important as you had a device that was very easy to use, a big teen demographic with access to it, and an explosion of mobile apps," said Charles Arthur, author of Digital Wars.
"It's a classic example of unintended consequences.
"Now, the selfie has taken over from the autograph.
"Watch people at any public event where they are meeting stars, and they're always trying to get a selfie with them."
6. October 2011: The death of Steve Jobs
When Tim Cook - rather than Steve Jobs - unveiled the 4S on 4 October 2011, he faced criticism for his performance. The BBC even accused him of appearing "dull".
What wasn't apparent at the time was that Mr Cook must have been aware that his mentor and friend Steve Jobs was close to death.
He died the next day.
It is likely that Apple would have collapsed had Mr Jobs not returned in 1997 to the company he had co-founded, meaning there would never have been an iPhone.
Or had he not subsequently stayed at Apple, it's possible the company's engineers might have pursued a rival mobile phone design based around the iPod's click wheel.
Certainly, since his death, Apple has yet to launch a product that has come anywhere close to achieving the iPhone's level of success, and some question whether it ever will.
Mr Jobs's last public appearance was at Cupertino City Council in June 2011, where he sought permission for Apple to build a new headquarters.
The new iPhone will be the first product to be launched at the new campus, within an event space called the Steve Jobs Theater.
7. April 2012: Facebook's $1bn takeover of Instagram
If ever proof were needed of the disruptive economic impact of the iPhone, the takeover of Instagram provided it.
The app had been in existence only 18 months when the deal was announced. It had just 13 employees and had been an iOS-exclusive until the week before the revelation.
Its takeover provided a bonanza to both Instagram's investors as well as to other smartphone-related start-ups seeking venture capital cash.
At the time, many thought Facebook had wildly overpaid. Now, as Instagram sucks in ever more advertising dollars while offline media's funding struggles worsen, it seems like a bargain.
Other apps that debuted on the iPhone - including Uber, Deliveroo and Airbnb - have shaken up industry in other ways.
And by one estimate, the total value of the global app economy - including software sales, advertising and mobile commerce - was $1.3tn (£993bn) for last year.
8. July 2012: Apple buys AuthenTec
Apple's $356m takeover of a fingerprint sensor chip-maker in 2012 caused a particular problem for Samsung.
The South Korean company was already using the Florida-based company's components in its laptops and had just announced a deal to add another of its security products to its Android phones.
But while the idea of frustrating its arch-rival probably had some appeal, the biggest benefit to Apple was the ability to launch its Touch ID system in 2013's iPhone 5S.
As reviews noted, previous attempts to introduce fingerprint scanning to phones had proven "unreliable, often causing more aggravation than they're worth" but the new system worked "pretty much flawlessly".
Initially, the feature was limited to being used to unlock the phone and make digital purchases from Apple.
But it later made it possible for the company to introduce Apple Pay and add security to third-party apps without requiring the hassle of typing in a password each time.
One side-effect of the sensor's success is it may have prolonged the life of a physical home button on the iPhone.
If rumours are to be believed, Apple has struggled to replace it with a part that could be hidden beneath the screen and may be about to replace it altogether with facial recognition scans on the iPhone X.
9. August 2013: Steve Ballmer says he is stepping down as Microsoft chief
In 1997, Microsoft threw Apple a lifeline by taking a $150m stake in the failing company.
Apple returned the favour by launching a product that Microsoft first failed to properly understand and then struggled to match.
Chief executive Steve Ballmer famously laughed at the iPhone's prospects after he first heard about it.
"That is the most expensive phone in the world, and it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard," he said in 2007.
Six years later, he announced the takeover of Nokia's phone business for 5.4bn euros ($6.5bn; £5bn) in an attempt to catch up, only for the sum to be written off in 2015 after he had departed and his successor finally accepted Windows Phone was a flop.
The irony is that if Microsoft's stake in Apple had not been sold off under Mr Ballmer, it would now be worth more than $40bn and he might have shared in its success.
"Like so many other people, Steve Ballmer completely underestimated the impact of the iPhone," said Ben Wood, from the CCS Insight consultancy.
"His arrogant dismissal has certainly come back to haunt him."
10. July 2016: Pokemon Go released
Pokemon Go fever is now well past its peak, and the app more likely to make headlines for botched events than rare monster sightings.
But its legacy has been to prove that augmented reality (AR) apps - in which graphics are mixed with real-world views - can have mass appeal.
AR actually dates back to 2009 on the iPhone, when a French developer created an app that shows nearby shops and other points of interest in Paris.
But it's set to come of age with the imminent release of iOS 11, which includes ARKit - software that makes it easier for developers to anchor graphics to the world beyond and take account of its lighting conditions.
Several demos released in advance have looked impressive, not least a version of PacMan where you walk through the maze.
The question remains whether users will be satisfied experiencing the action on their iPhones, or whether Apple will feel compelled to release an accompanying headset to let them go hands-free.
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Action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken to the streets of Edinburgh for a morning bike ride. | Setting off at a leisurely pace through the west end, the former governor of California promptly began cycling on the wrong side of the street.
The Terminator star was in the capital to attend a black-tie dinner in his honour at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
The Hollywood star is often spotted cycling at home in California.
He shocked London commuters last year when he jumped on a Boris bike to enjoy a sightseeing tour.
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. | By Chris SmithNewsbeat reporter
It was the age of Wagamama katsu curry, it was the age of homemade IKEA meatballs.
It was the season of Schofield, it was the season of sanitizer.
But most of all, it was the season of sourdough.
Yes, it's that time again when Google Trends releases the UK's most searched-for terms of the year.
And, as you'd expect, 2020's list makes for fascinating reading.
Pandemic panic
Not surprisingly, the coronavirus pandemic dominates this year's list - as a quick look at the top How To questions of 2020 will testify.
How's that for a snapshot of 2020? (Apart from the bit about eels, which we'll come to later.)
Meatball mania
As lockdown confined so many of us to our kitchens, it's not surprising that recipes were some of the top searches.
The ubiquitous sourdough bread makes an appearance of course, with bread at the top of the list and "white bread" and "soda bread" also making the top 10.
But perhaps a little surprisingly, the second most searched-for recipe in the UK this year was the classic French comfort food beef bourguignon.
People were also missing their favourite meals out while restaurants were forced to close.
Wagamama katsu curry comes in at seven - and people pining for the middle-class McDonalds sent the term ''IKEA meatball recipe" to number nine.
Tiger titillation
While that sourdough starter was beginning to bubble, lots of us reached for the remote.
The most searched-for TV show of the year was Love Island.
The reality show made its first winter appearance back in grey January - though the tragic death of former presenter Caroline Flack was announced before it had finished its run.
Normal People also proved a big online talking point, as did Tiger King, which became a hit in March just as the pandemic really started to bite.
And as I'm A Celebrity eased people through the end of Lockdown II, the campmates in the castle promoted several trending search terms.
That explains the strange appearance of "how to cook eels" on the earlier food list - the contestants found eels in their basket one dinner time.
And the resulting meal made it obvious that they would have greatly benefited from a Google recipe search.
Radio 1's own Jordan North also became the UK's fourth most searched-for celebrity off the back of his castle antics.
He was only beaten by the stars of Tiger King and TV host Philip Schofield, who came out in February.
Living-room lunges
As so many of us harbour vague ideas of taking up intermittent fasting or something in January 2021, fitness was a big theme in our online lives.
Living rooms across the nation echoed to the sounds of "bunny hops! Silly billies! Cor, I've got a right sweat on!" at 9am sharp every morning in the first lockdown.
The culprit? Joe Wicks, of course - now Joe Wicks MBE thanks to his valiant efforts keeping the nation dripping sweat from their noses onto the lounge rug.
But just behind Joe was Australian YouTuber Chloe Ting, whose online workouts also proved a hit with UK searchers trying to offset all that homemade bread.
When?
It's a question millions of people wanted an answer to in 2020… When?
Here's the full list of the top UK search terms beginning "when" from this year.
For full effect, wail the list out loud while clasping your hands together.
Lyrics
Song lyrics googled this year provide a strange mix of the patriotic and the, er, not quite so patriotic.
Dame Vera Lynn's wartime banger We'll Meet Again was high on the list - along with Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory - spurred on by the VE Day anniversary celebrations in May.
What is VE Day? was also the most-searched question beginning "what is?".
But it was Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion who most people wanted subtitles for.
If you're not familiar with the song, here's your NSFW warning. We suggest you don't search for the lyrics if you're easily offended.
Beaver bafflement
The main list of 2020's most commonly-asked questions in the UK throws up just one final surprise.
Among the usual suspects of "who won the election?" and "when will lockdown end?" there was an odd-looking entry at number two.
The question is this: "Where does vanilla flavouring come from?"
We've traced this one back to a TikToker named Sloowmoee, who asked people to film themselves searching that question and post their reactions.
It would have led many people to a National Geographic article with the clickable headline Beaver Butts Emit Goo Used for Vanilla Flavouring.
The article's about a substance called castoreum which can indeed be harvested from the hindquarters of beavers.
But, to avoid you choking on your latte, we're told most vanilla flavourings are now synthetic.
If 2020 had a fitting conclusion - this is quite probably it.
Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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This week marks the 50th anniversary of the official opening of Tees Dock. The port, near Middlesbrough, is now the country's third largest. BBC News spoke to former workers about their memories of life down the docks. | Walking around the present day Teesport, retired docker John Wade is amazed by the scale of the operation.
"In 1963 all you had at Tees Dock was two cranes, one brick shed and a cabin for the dockers," he said.
"It was a brick cabin with coat hangers and nothing else. Nobody could have imagined how it would change."
The port now handles 40m tonnes of cargo each year and about 1,500 people pass through every day.
Mr Wade, 78, was among dozens of men who transferred to Tees Dock from Middlesbrough Dock, just along the River Tees.
Half a century on, he is still telling tales of hard graft and endless banter with his workmates.
"Middlesbrough dockers back then were the best in the world because they were perfectionists," he said.
"Dockers had to be able to do everything. Loads had to be flat and flush. The only thing that I saw go on a ship that wasn't put on by dockers was a racehorse."
Staff past and present are being invited to anniversary celebrations this week and while reminiscing will be top of the agenda, bosses at parent company PD Ports have one eye on the future.
Steel from the nearby SSI plant now sails to Thailand from the port and chief executive David Robinson said "major investment" was planned for the next three years that would see "bigger ships" dock on Teesside.
Former docker Mr Wade gathered together a group of former colleagues to share stories from their days spent loading ships bound for all corners of the globe.
Peter McGee, 74, recalled a recruitment process that was short and to the point.
"There were three questions, 'can you read, can you write and can you carry 16 stone on your back?' and if you answered yes to all three questions you got a job."
Mr McGee said certain shifts took on legendary status among dockers thanks to the backbreaking quantities of cargo that were moved.
The "white mountain" in the late 1960s saw so much salt loaded that the men could barely enjoy a beer to toast their efforts because their muscles were so sore, he said.
"They went for a pint afterwards in Middlesbrough and it took them 20 minutes to pick the glass up from the table."
In those days, the vast majority of work was done by hand. Now, Mr McGee says, technology means "they can do in about two minutes what we did in a shift".
Fellow dockers Terry Brown, 71, and Trevor Hodgson, 68, agreed that despite the backbreaking work, the atmosphere on shift meant time often flew by.
Mr Hodgson said: "There's no job in the country where the banter could be any better."
"It was a pleasure to go to work," Mr Brown said.
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A landslide along the railway line between Newry, County Down, and Dundalk, County Louth, has disrupted cross-border train services. | The line was closed between the two stations on Thursday evening due to "subsidence" on the track north of Dundalk, according to Translink.
Passengers were bussed between Newry and Dublin in both directions.
The line has reopened but Translink has warned of knock-on delays on Friday.
'Delays'
Translink has apologised "for any inconvenience".
A spokeswoman for the company told BBC News NI that Enterprise services between Belfast and Dublin will operate on Friday.
However, she said there will be "likely delays of 15-20 minutes to northbound services".
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Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas's will.i.am and U2's Larry Mullen Jnr are just some of the stars lending their voices to new Family Guy cartoon spin-off The Cleveland Show. | By Greg CochraneNewsbeat music reporter
The series, showing on E4 in the UK, and created by Family Guy boss Seth MacFarlane follows the adventures of Cleveland Brown and his family.
Mike Henry, who voices the main character said: "Kanye could not be a cooler guy at our show - we do definitely have some jokes where he makes light of himself."
"He does some things out in public that stir up controversy and opinions. He knew that and we contacted him and he was totally up for doing the part."
'Cool' guy
The show, which began in the US last autumn and is already commissioned for a second season, has managed to enlist a number of big name musicians including the outspoken rapper.
"He's a recurring character," says Henry of Kanye West, who voices a character called Kenny West in the show. "He does an extended rap-off with Cleveland Jnr in an episode first season and he and Cleveland hook up and do another rap in season two.
"The first time we had actually written a rap for him. Five of our writers sat down to write this rap and they were like, 'I wonder how he's going to like it?'.
"But he was genuinely laughing. He very humbly asked if we could change one line which didn't feel right. He was even joking that we should write a song for his next album."
More stars
Of course, this isn't a new idea. Over the past two decades we've seen cameos from the likes of Green Day, Aerosmith and, most recently, Coldplay in shows like The Simpsons.
Other music stars lined up to take part in season two of The Cleveland Show are Black Eyed Pea's will.i.am and rapper T Pain - who'll play sidekicks for Cleveland Jnr.
"We just recorded him last week and he was absolutely hilarious. He could do his own animated show he's got so many voices," says Henry of Will.i.am.
U2's drummer Larry Mullen Jnr also got in touch with the programme's creators through a mutual friend and asked to be involved.
"He came in and we hung out for a couple of hours. We just recorded him doing a couple of different parts and he was very funny.
"It's a thrill for me to do all this. U2 is my favourite band of all time and David Lynch the film director plays a part on our show.
"He [Mullen Jnr] plays a mobster in one episode; he plays a bad Elvis impersonator by design in another episode.
"He's got his own studio so we just record it from Dublin. You don't have to record at a certain time. It's an easy gig and one that people like to do.
"It's very cool to have all these people from different walks of entertainment participating in what we're doing."
The Cleveland Show airs at 10pm on E4 every Monday.
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China is gearing up to change its top leaders, a process that begins at the end of the year. This week, the annual parliamentary session will give those in the running the chance to show off their credentials. The BBC's Michael Bristow profiles key figures.
| Bo Xilai, 62, is the nearest thing China has to a Western-style politician.
Like Xi Jinping, he is the son of a famous communist hero, but he has gone on to forge his own unique public personality.
He ran the big coastal city of Dalian and then became commerce minister, before moving to his post in charge of Chongqing, a sprawling city in western China.
But a scandal during this posting proved to be his undoing and state media reported that he was removed from office on 15 March. He has been replaced by Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang.
The scandal erupted when his former chief of police in Chongqing, Wang Lijun, spent a day at a United States consulate in Chengdu last month.
Bo Xilai launched two high-profile campaigns in Chongqing, including one to promote China's communist past.
The other sought to crack down on the city's organised crime, which previously seemed to operate with the protection of many government officials.
Suave and sophisticated, Mr Bo sent his son to study at Harrow, one of the UK's most exclusive private schools.
The politician seems at home in front of the cameras and appears to enjoy pushing his policies in public.
During China's annual parliamentary session, the National People's Congress (NPC), Mr Bo spoke about his ex-police chief, answering questions from journalists at a meeting on its sidelines.
He said he had not imagined Mr Wang would run off. It came suddenly, Mr Bo said.
"I feel like I put my trust in the wrong person."
It is unclear what the future holds for him now.
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A campaign has begun in Iran to get an actress flogged after she was seen being kissed at the Cannes Festival. Flogging is common in Iran - but what offences in Iranian law are punished with the lash, asks Tom de Castella. | Who, What, WhyThe Magazine answers the questions behind the news
It was a normal French greeting. The actress Leila Hatami - best known for starring in the Oscar-winning film, A Separation - received a kiss on the cheek from festival president Gilles Jacob. But she has come under attack from religious hardliners for accepting the greeting rather than ducking away.
Radical students have condemned her "sinful act of kissing a strange man in public" and demanded she be flogged under article 638 of the criminal code, which deals with public morality.
Adultery, kissing in public, theft, homosexual acts, drinking or selling alcohol, and blasphemy are all grounds for flogging in Iran. Offenders are usually sentenced to between 10 and 100 lashes across the back, carried out with a one-metre (three-foot) whip. The pain is so severe that they often faint after seven or eight strokes, says Anicee Van Engeland, a specialist in Iranian law at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies.
Faranak Amidi of the BBC's Persian Service says the punishment would traditionally have taken place in a public square, in order to humiliate the culprit, but is now often done in a police station. It's a common way of punishing young people for going out and mixing with the opposite sex, she says. She herself was sentenced to 10 lashes after a police raid at a party, although she chose the option of paying a fine instead. Her cousin received 100 lashes for a similar offence and had to be taken to hospital.
Flogging can also be used as a "lenient" punishment for other types of crime, such as adultery, where the death penalty or death by stoning is a possible sentence, says Van Engeland. Children are spared until the age of 18.
Foreigners are unlikely to be punished for holding hands, but those who have sexual relations with a Muslim may be flogged.
Amnesty International's Tom Davies says flogging equates to a form of torture and is banned by international law. As well as physical injury, he says, it can cause long-lasting psychological harm.
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A 46-year-old has appeared in court charged with the murder of a man whose torso was found on a Hampshire beach. | The remains of David Guy, 30, were discovered by a group of students on Southsea beach, Portsmouth, on 3 July.
David Hilder, of Richmond Road, Southsea, appeared before Portsmouth magistrates earlier.
He spoke only to confirm his name, age and address. He was remanded in custody to appear at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday.
Mr Guy's torso was found wrapped in a pink curtain inside a black bin liner on 3 July. His lower body was discovered nearby on Friday.
After the hearing, Hampshire Constabulary confirmed that officers were searching an allotment in Locksway Road, Portsmouth, in connection with the investigation.
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This morning the prime minister's official spokesman said something important. | James LandaleDeputy political editor@BBCJLandaleon Twitter
He was asked to comment on reports in the Financial Times that David Cameron was personally overseeing plans to prepare the NHS for a cold winter that could put pressure on accident and emergency departments.
The spokesman said this: "Is the PM working very closely with the Secretary of State for Health on health matters, with a particular focus on A&E? Absolutely he is doing that."
He was then asked if it was true that the prime minister had demanded weekly updates on how many people were being admitted to A&E. The spokesman replied: "Yeah, he does want to and he continues to be up-to-date with the very best and latest figures, including the A&E statistics."
So at a time when Labour is warning gloomily of what it calls a "winter crisis" in A&E, when some doctors are saying that emergency care is already under pressure, when some weather forecasters are predicting a bitterly cold snap as the gulf stream heads south, the prime minister has chosen to get personally involved.
As Sir Humphrey might have said, that is rather bold.
For it means that Mr Cameron will be seen to be making himself personally responsible for whatever happens in the NHS this winter. If anything goes wrong, he will not be able to blame his health advisers, his health secretary, his health secretary's advisers or even the health department as a whole. The buck will now stop in Number 10.
Government sources say it is all about the prime minister showing that he is taking the issue seriously, that he is focused on the operational details, that he cannot be accused of complacency.
But the former Labour Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan once said that in a centralised NHS the sound of a bedpan falling in his local hospital would reverberate in the Palace of Westminster.
And this winter, if A&E departments struggle to cope, it could be sound of patients complaining from trolleys that will reverberate in the corridors of Downing Street.
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Almost 100 years after a group of British soldiers died as World War One prisoners of war, 39 headstones have been erected at a cemetery in Poland in their memory. But who were the men who died so far from home? | By Emma HallettBBC News
Before World War One broke out the paths of Seymour Blewett, Frank Bower and James Grier were unlikely to have crossed.
Blewett was a printer and book binder in Truro, Cornwall, living miles away from railway clerk Bower in Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, and Grier in the Channel Island of Alderney.
But in 1918 they found themselves housed in overcrowded and insanitary wooden barracks, starving hungry and forced to work.
Each is believed to have died after spending time in the hospital at the Heilsberg prisoner of war camp in east Germany (now part of Poland) and were buried at the nearby Lidzbark Warminski cemetery.
Between August and December 1918, 39 British prisoners of war would die at the camp where they had been held among thousands of Russian prisoners.
David Tattersfield, development trustee of the Western Front Association, has been researching the history of the "Heilsberg 39".
The Western Front Association, a charity which aims to educate the public in the history of World War One, has recovered and saved numerous documents including pension cards and service records that were due to be destroyed.
"There were three massive offensives in the spring of 1918," he said.
"The 21 March 1918, which is when Blewett was captured, the April offensive on the Lys, when Bower was captured, and the third one was the Chemin des Dames, when Grier was captured, any one of which could have potentially won the war for the Germans."
Pte Bower joined the 22nd Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, aged just 17 and underwent a prolonged period of training before being posted overseas when he turned 19.
He joined the Houplines sector, near Armentieres - supposedly a quiet part of the front. But this was about to change.
"He's sent out and lo and behold he doesn't ever fire a shot as he is in hospital with a stomach bug when the Germans launched a massive attack," Mr Tattersfield said.
Bower was moved to Heilsberg prisoner of war camp, about 80 miles east of the city of Danzig (now Gdansk), and it was here, on 29 October 1918, he died of pneumonia.
"There was a massive blockade of Germany at the time, so it was basically being starved on the home front," Mr Tattersfield said.
"The priority was to feed the army, then second came the civil population, who were on starvation rations, and bottom of the pile would have come prisoners of war.
"In the meantime they were being expected to work whether it was down mines or farms or in factories."
Also being held at Heilsberg was 22-year-old gunner Grier.
He was an early volunteer and is believed to have enlisted late in 1914 or early 1915, before being sent to France in May 1915.
It is not certain which unit Grier originally joined, but he ended up in 251st Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.
During the war Grier saw a lot of action and it was while his brigade had been sent to recuperate that he was captured in May 1918.
"There were beautiful landscapes of flowers blooming, beautiful May weather, it was quiet, nothing going on and then all of a sudden all hell breaks loose," Mr Tattersfield said.
"The Germans launched an absolutely massive attack through this area where people were supposed to be resting, in an area called Chemin des Dames."
Grier and his comrades were "extremely unlucky" and almost all were captured. He was shipped off to the prisoner of war camp and died on 19 October 1918.
Following an appeal by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) and Mr Tattersfield's research, members of Grier's family were tracked down in Rainham, Kent.
Mia and Steve Mannion know very little about their great uncle James, but Mr Mannion has kept a number of old family photos and Grier's diary.
On 30 May 1918 it reads: "Today we got the same rations as yesterday, but still we are unable to eat them. We have also had a terrible hard day's work and are getting badly knocked about."
Mr Mannion said: "That's his last entry. He was captured and really badly looked after by his captors...he hadn't experienced any life at all. A sad loss I would say."
The Heilsberg camp contained mainly Russian and other eastern European prisoners, and it is believed that in October 1918, there were about 1,000 British PoWs at the camp, out of a total of 95,000 prisoners.
Blewett, who would become a husband and stepfather during the war, joined the Royal Berkshire Regiment on 10 December 1915 when he was 33-years-old.
He volunteered to be transferred to the newly created Machine Gun Corps and was captured on 21 March 1918 - the first of three spring offensives, called Operation Michael.
He would spend eight months as a prisoner of war.
While Germany signed an armistice with the Allies on 11 November 1918 - the official date of the end of World War One - Blewett was at the camp for another month before he died on 2 December.
"Blewett died after the war ended, which makes me think he would have been in hospital, otherwise he would have been making his way home once the war finished, suggesting he was incapable of getting home," Mr Tattersfield said.
The Germans made a cemetery at Lidzbark Warminski for the prisoners who died - containing 2,800 graves - with the British graves numbering 39.
The Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission realised in the 1930s that the 39 British burials could not be located among the mass graves. However, the men were commemorated on the site.
This continued until the 1960s when it became apparent that the cemetery could no longer be maintained and the men were instead commemorated on a small memorial at the Malbork Commonwealth War Cemetery.
Now the CWGC has rebuilt the cemetery in Poland and erected 39 headstones for those that died at Heilsberg.
During his research for the Western Front Association into Blewett, Mr Tattersfield found that for the last 96 years Blewett's sacrifice been remembered on a memorial bearing the wrong spelling of his name - something the CWGC will now put right.
Peter Francis, from the CWGC, said: "The records were put together by the army (in 1919) and you sometimes find that a clerk mistyped a name or misheard a name and we think that is probably what happened in this instance.
"David has been able to help us with finding some of the original documents and it became clear that this was an error that we are able to rectify, to make sure we are able to honour that man correctly."
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When a woman in Taupo, New Zealand, wrote about the love and support of her husband during her night terrors and dark days of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), she didn't expect the huge reaction that followed. | Christine Welten, who posted on Reddit about how much she appreciated her husband telling her it was OK to wake him up for cuddles, said: "I actually initially created my post more to highlight my husband's amazing nature, than my battle with PTSD."
But it soon became apparent that she had touched a lot of people also struggling with the disorder, people who were inspired to share their stories. Her post received more than 25,000 upvotes in 10 days.
"It was humbling for both my husband and I to see the love and community that came out of one simple post," she said.
As an author and public speaker on mental health matters, Christine is quite accustomed to starting discussions on social media, but said she found it much harder to speak openly about the issues behind her PTSD.
"Even when it is uncomfortable, I try to be as open as I can," she said and praised all those who shared their own experiences of PTSD as "so brave".
"It restored my faith in humanity hearing so many people say they want to support and love their partners the best they can."
One comment included advice on getting through a panic attack by counting down and naming five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.
"This has literally never failed me during a panic attack," Reddit user renderdoodles wrote.
"Sometimes I panic so much I can't focus to just do it in my head and I'll force myself to mutter it aloud under my breath. I've yet to make it all the way to the end without becoming less anxious."
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As the sharing continued, one uploader confessed they had always wondered how to show empathy better to their partner, adding they would "shamelessly steal" Christine's husband's idea.
Praise poured in for him, with one person calling him a "keeper", while others shared their own struggles with PTSD, saying half the battle is simply having someone there.
One Reddit user shared the similar tactics used by their boyfriend: "My boyfriend does something similar. I have terrible OCD and often get into a panic at night and I'll just cuddle up to him and he'll wake up and hold me, never angry. If it's really bad and I'm in tears, he'll sit up and help me through it, get me water etc. It's one of the many reasons I love him."
Christine responded to some of the posts about coping strategies, and particularly loved one from somebody praising their partner's kindness, consideration and compassion which read: "I never expected anyone to act that way. I've never felt more loved. I love my best friend and team-mate."
The post added that the person's partner gives them a "pop quiz" before bed to calm them down.
"He asks me where he's at, when can I wake him up, and so on. The answers are always in the other room and whenever I need him. It doesn't matter if he's asleep, if I'm having a bad night and need him, just go.
"It is the sweetest thing, and I didn't know people were that considerate and compassionate and loving, or more so."
Although there were one or two people who questioned whether PTSD is a real condition, Christine said she was taken aback by some of the heartfelt comments: "To find myself in tears from some of the posts and the overwhelming sense of love I received from the majority of them was hugely cathartic and validating," she said.
What is PTSD?
Help and information on PTSD is available through the BBC advice pages.
Written by Sherie Ryder, UGC and Social News
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Carla Lane, who has died aged 87, was perhaps best known for creating the popular 1980s sitcom Bread, set in her home city of Liverpool. But while for many viewers the trials and tribulations of the Boswell family were simply a slice of early evening entertainment, Liverpudlians had a far more complex relationship with the show. | By Bronwyn JonesBBC News
Its depiction of the working-class Boswells struggling to make their way in Thatcher's Britain was pilloried for stereotyping Scousers as much as it was praised for its humorous portrayal of life in Liverpool.
There's no doubt that 1980s Merseyside was blighted by deprivation, high unemployment and poor prospects, with the docking industry in decline and dole queues out the door.
Bread captured that troubled period through the Boswells' daily grind to fill the family kitty - and reached huge audiences, with more than 21m viewers tuning in to watch Aveline marry Protestant vicar Oswald in 1988.
But at the same time it painted the city in the national imagination as home to workshy, benefit-cheating dossers.
A TV critic for The Times picked up on this, writing in 1986 that Bread "reinforces the cultural stereotype of the inhabitants of that self-destructive city as a bunch of spongers abusing the welfare state".
The Liverpool Echo's former TV editor Peter Grant agrees that Bread "didn't do the city any great favours".
He said the characters were "cartoon-esque" and could have survived "without that backdrop of being scroungers" but that "if people took it too seriously, they were missing the point" as humour was at the heart of the show.
Ultimately, though, Grant believes Bread "didn't do any long-lasting damage" to the city. And he remembers fondly the thrill he got at the time from "seeing the River Mersey", nudging his dad to say: "We're on the telly!".
"It was like a postcard to the rest of the country from Liverpool," Grant says.
Peter Howitt, who played leather-clad Joey, the oldest of the Boswell children, has an even more positive take on the programme, remembering his time in Bread with happiness.
He said: "It was a joy to be in Liverpool" and "to be appreciated by the local community", who "loved" the show.
Howitt's view is that Lane had an "incredible take on human nature" and her writing "was geared to make you think about where you are and where you'd like to be".
All of the Bread family, he argues, "wanted to be somewhere they weren't quite yet - so how are they going to get there?"
Nick Conway, who played youngest son Billy, said Lane "just used to be able to encapsulate Scouse humour" and "there was an honesty behind her portrayal of families and their relationships with each other".
For Merseyside author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, many shows - often made in the city - have contributed to a negative image of Liverpool, but he thinks Bread was "warm-hearted".
"A lot of comedy now is quite cold but Bread was funny and quick and still had a heart."
He said Lane gave "lots of opportunities to Liverpool actors and writers" and "left a legacy of talent," adding that "she was not a spokesperson for the city... that was not her responsibility".
And the stereotyping of Liverpool that some see in Bread was hardly unique to the show.
From a city crippled by unemployment in Boys from the Blackstuff, to a crime-ridden drug-den in BBC documentary Mersey Blues, you would think there was no aspiration or opportunity in Liverpool.
But what did Lane herself make of the impact of her creation?
Speaking years after the show had come to an end - it ran from 1986 to 1991 - she said she felt its critics had misunderstood Bread.
"I just didn't take any notice because you can't... there were enough people loving it," she said.
"Everything I wrote was what I knew.
"The whole of this country was talking about Liverpool and I didn't do any disfavours to Liverpool.
"I mean, the Bread family were a good family. They didn't do anything terrible at all."
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After the shootings, Charleston's beloved mayor struggles with an ugly reality of racism and rage. Yet his campaign to combat inequality shows how big the problem is - and how small some solutions can feel. | By Tara McKelveyBBC News Magazine
Mayor Joseph Riley Jr, speaks eloquently about British architecture and the history of Charleston.
When asked about Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old from Eastover who's been charged with nine counts of murder, though, he struggles.
"We had the tragic misfortune of this evil person committing this act who came from a distant town," the mayor says.
"It's like almost like an alien source appeared here," he says. "It's not this city."
His language reflects his personal anguish over the massacre in Charleston, a place of beauty and charm.
His response is understandable - and common.
Just as he says the assailant is from somewhere else, so do people in New York, Washington and other Northern cities try to push away the notion of racism and extremism.
Oh, that's in the South, they say.
Perhaps now after this particularly brutal act in Charleston, it's time to take stock of what's happening.
These shootings come as the conversation about racial injustice in America has become increasingly heated, with a continuous series of unjust police encounters, deadly assaults, inhumane prison treatment and burdensome legal fees symbolising a structural racial injustice
Taken together these events make it harder to say violence against African Americans is random or confined to another place, wherever that may be.
They also make the portrayal of Roof as an outsider, at least according to New York University's Charlton McIlwain, seem "disingenuous".
McIlwain has studied race for years, and he tells me platitudes and kind gestures from those in power will only get us so far - especially if they come at the expense of structural change at institutions and in federal and state policies in the US.
Cal Morrison, a retired security-systems manager in Charleston, agrees. Wearing a black "Do you believe us now?" T-shirt, Morrison says Roof and his racist violence is hardly alien.
"It is us," Morrison says. "It is part of our culture from the vestiges of slavery."
Two days after the shootings, the mayor heads for Emanuel AME Church. Paint is peeling from the spire, showing splotches of charcoal-grey, and the stained glass windows are dark.
Someone puts a tulip near a sign that says:
Rev Clementa Pinckney Pastor
Sundays at 930 AM
It's a makeshift memorial for him and Ethel Lance; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton; Depayne Doctor; Cynthia Hurd; Susie Jackson; Tywanza Sanders; Daniel Simmons, Sr and Mira Thompson.
A balloon tied to a flowerpot says: "Officially the best dad ever". A teddy bear sits with its head slumped on its chest.
Riley, 72, is wearing a striped tie and a light-beige, cotton jacket ("Charleston uniform", says one of his aides). Despite the 90F degree (32C) he looks cool while he talks to journalists.
Unlike them, he doesn't have damp splotches on his shirt. His shoes are rust-coloured, and the leather looks as soft as butter.
He says he once marched "on these two feet" from Charleston to Columbia, the state capital, to protest against the Confederate battle flag over the statehouse.
At that time, it flew directly over the capitol dome. As a compromise, it was moved to the grounds directly in front of the statehouse.
The march, which covered 120 miles and took place more than a decade ago, is one of the reasons he's beloved. A progressive, he talks about gun control and race issues and has helped build the city's award-winning parks and market squares.
He decided to run for mayor, he says, because he wanted "to build a bridge between the black and white community".
He was elected in 1975 and afterwards went on a trip to Europe, spending time in England.
In Bristol he saw a park built with big, new trees rather than small ones and with granite instead of concrete.
"I understood that you don't apologise for using good materials," he says. "If you're going to build something for citizens, then you build it with great beauty."
The parks, he says, are for everyone, "poor and rich, black and white," saying they have "enriched our city emotionally".
The city has a dark past - and much to overcome. Nearly half of the slaves in the US who arrived on ships came through Charleston.
More recently the city's Emanuel AME Church served as the centre of the civil-rights movement. Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr spoke there in 1962.
As Riley moved into the mayoral office schools were being integrated, and discriminatory policies abolished.
"There was change in America," he says. "I realised the South needed to change."
Keith Waring, 59, a city councilman, says the mayor has over the years helped bring together blacks and whites and is known for his "open-door policy" for civil-rights activists and others.
The mayor appointed the first black police chief, Reuben Greenberg, a pioneer in community policing, in 1982, and has worked to foster better race relations.
The New York Times' Frank Bruni says Riley is arguably the "the most loved politician in America".
That afternoon Riley sits in a wooden chair in a second-floor room at city hall. He points to an oil painting of an African-American civil rights activist, Septima Poinsette Clark, and says once the room had portraits only of white people.
Because of his efforts, he says, her portrait along with one of Daniel Joseph Jenkins, an African American who founded an orphanage, are now on the wall.
Later I count the paintings - 27. Two portraits of African Americans are better than none, but it hardly seems like sweeping reform.
Riley grew up about a mile from city hall. When he was little, he used to buy wildflowers from an African-American family who had a stand across the street from the building.
Sheila Taylor, 62, now sells sweet-grass baskets, the kind slaves made when they laboured in the fields, on the same corner.
"He's a very nice man," she says, describing the mayor. "He's been good to the black people."
Her baskets cost $70 (£44) apiece, more than wildflowers. Otherwise little has changed.
He's chosen to do things incrementally, and the results are modest. At times he comes across as a kind-hearted plantation owner, a man overseeing a system that, while functioning, is deeply flawed.
"To his credit he has put race relations at the forefront," says McIlwain. "But his failures are symptomatic of how entrenched racism is in Charleston and elsewhere."
The number of blacks living in Charleston has gone down over the years. Activists and city officials say many have been driven out by high prices and by wealthy, white residents who are buying up property.
For many of those who remain, poverty, unemployment and homelessness remain a serious problem.
The shootings in the church reflect the rage, violence and racism that lurk below the surface, exposing a wound.
However you try to understand its reasons, one thing is clear - the pain has permeated the city.
"Every heart is broken," Riley says. "White people, black people, everybody is mourning."
That evening he sits in a large auditorium near the church. People are carrying long-stemmed roses. Hundreds of them were de-thorned and donated by a florist in New York.
Outside it smells like sandalwood, wafting from an incense stick someone has stuck in the dirt.
Inside an African-American activist, J Denise Cromwell, 52, holds a sign about justice. She runs a barbershop and a homeless programme and knows about the challenges the mayor faces.
"His work is a very difficult task," she says.
She says she isn't convinced by his claim that the assailant is from a distant land, though, a place the mayor says lies "a two-hour drive" and "almost 100 miles" away.
"The real truth is it ain't somewhere else," she says. "We got to face it here."
As she talks, a young white woman in a ponytail comes over and puts her head on her shoulder. "My daughter," Cromwell says.
I look at them, puzzled.
Cromwell recalls how she saw the woman, Asia Cromwell, who's now 24, as a three-day-old baby in a hospital. Her birth mother was unwilling or incapable of caring for her, says Cromwell, who decided on the spot to adopt her.
"I really didn't see the colour," Cromwell says. She swirls her hand in the air, showing how it seemed to disappear.
Since the shootings in the church, people in Charleston, including those who lost loved ones, have spoken of forgiveness. It's an extraordinary gesture, but not everyone thinks it's the right path.
The mayor, for one, says he can't muster it.
"I don't know that this man can be forgiven for what he did," he tells me. "I don't know that I can do that."
On this point McIlwain agrees. He believes people in the US have tried for too long to overcome racism simply by striving for greater love and kindness between blacks and whites.
"You hear, 'It's time to heal,' and, sure, I'm all for that. But I think it's not the cure," he says.
For change to occur, he says, political and economic institutions must be reformed.
Some things have happened. The Confederate flag - the one Riley protested about years ago - may soon come down.
Governor Nikki Haley says it should be taken from the State House building. Lawmakers are considering steps for its removal.
And while not everyone is ready to forgive, they're trying to look ahead.
"You know few cities have escaped their histories unscathed, and this is one of those brutal injuries that this city is experiencing," Riley says. "But our people know that you move forward."
Like others, he'll carry on with his work.
For the event in the auditorium he's changed into a dark suit. He sits near the podium as church leaders talk about the dead.
During the speeches he wipes his face with a handkerchief. It's near the end of a long day, one so draining even he has started to sweat.
Photographs by Colm O'Molloy
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A man has died in a crash between two lorries on the M1 motorway. | The crash happened at about 19:00 GMT on Friday near junction 21a for Leicester Forest East and forced the closure of the southbound carriageway overnight.
A 52-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene, but no-one else was hurt.
Leicestershire Police has appealed for any witnesses to the crash to get in touch. The carriageway reopened at about 05:00 on Saturday.
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Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza has given gunmen opposing his third term five days to surrender and be granted an amnesty or face tough anti-terrorism legislation to be introduced by the end of the month. It follows months of shootings in the capital, which the BBC's Alastair Leithead says has raised fears of a return to civil war: | I have been receiving the photographs for several weeks now. Every few days they pop up on my phone - usually with a little note: "These are the latest found today."
The person who is texting me is talking about bodies. Almost every day in Burundi a body is found, dumped in a storm drain or beside a road.
Often they have been shot or stabbed in the chest; sometimes they have been tied up - usually somebody takes a picture.
The photographs and videos are posted on Facebook, or messaged from phone to phone - it is how people share information now.
The independent media is all but shut down. Many journalists and human rights activists have been scared out of the country.
One of the photos which appeared on my phone was of a well-known woman who had worked for the opposition party. The picture was delivered two days after she had gone missing.
Another was of Eloi Ndimira, a 54-year-old man who walked with a crutch and had tried to stop the police beating someone on the street. They turned on him.
The photograph is truly horrific. I will not even describe it.
We met his family as they were laying flowers on his grave; they were afraid to speak, to be seen with us.
Cleaning up his body for the burial, they found he had been beaten, stabbed, shot. And his heart had been cut from his chest.
Widespread terror
They were not the only two people to die in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, in the last few weeks.
I recognised the neatly painted blue house number from the video clip: Number 48 Buye street.
Flies now buzzed at the foot of the red metal doors, where the video had shown a pool of blood-stained earth, marking the spot where Christophe Nkezabahizi had been shot twice, at close range, having done as the police asked, and opened the door.
Mr Nkezabahizi was a cameraman for the state broadcaster. He was not like the underground activists we met who know the risks of photographing the latest body to have appeared on the street.
He had not protested against the third term the president had gained after an election widely described as flawed. He had told the stories the government wanted telling.
The policemen knew this - he told them just before he was killed. They knew this when they told his family to lie face down in the street - just before they were all murdered.
Who is President Pierre Nkurunziza?
Burundi's football-playing president
Presidents who cling to power
Like its close neighbour Rwanda, Burundi has a dark past.
It was not called genocide here, but in the 1990s hundreds of thousands of people died in ethnic violence between Tutsis and Hutus.
This time the killing, so far at least, has not been based on ethnicity but is connected to Africa's new fever - third termism, where presidents are determined to have a third term in office whatever the constitution says.
It is sweeping the continent from Burkina Faso to the Congos, from Rwanda to Burundi.
But here, where ethnic divisions run so deep, there is a real fear - expressed openly on social media, or whispered in the close communities of the capital - of what could happen if this spiral of violence is not stopped.
Ethnic hate speech is starting to emerge from the shadows, the language of "us" and "them".
Terror is widespread, and that is probably the idea.
Politicians have been assassinated, perhaps the president's most powerful security figure was killed, and the country's best-known human rights campaigner barely survived after being shot in the face.
Murder is sometimes tit-for-tat, but also can be as random as it is brutal.
People are picked up and tortured. I met one man - a truck driver - still in great pain after being arrested in June.
"His black week," he calls it. He was forced to sit in acid, to stand on nails, a jerrycan of sand was hung from his genitals.
He escaped when the cell door was accidentally left open. Too weak to walk, his last hope was to crawl out on his hands and knees.
He still does not know why he was picked on.
They accused him of weapons training; he says he is just a businessman from out of town.
Not all the killing is being done by shady police units aligned to the government.
Those who were protesting on the streets have been driven underground and now are responsible for their share of murder.
Grenades are thrown at patrol cars, police are kidnapped and killed.
It provokes a brutal response and the cycle continues.
Retaliation is why the police knocked at 48 Buye Street.
Mr Nkezabahizi did not kidnap or kill a policeman, but not knowing who did, the police picked on him and sent a strong warning to the community… those who act violently in Burundi, act with impunity.
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For Steve, homelessness started when his relationship broke down. | By Becky Morton and Tom BatemanBBC News
He moved into shared accommodation and after going into hospital with pneumonia he came home to find the landlord changing the locks.
Soon he was on the streets.
"People think if you're homeless you must be some kind of addict or a bad person," he says. "But it takes such a little spark to cause the fire of homelessness. And trying to find help is actually quite hard because it's not that well signposted."
Councils have a legal duty to help families, pregnant women and other vulnerable people who find themselves homeless. But as a single man Steve did not qualify as "priority need" and the private rented sector was the most viable option.
But renting in the private sector is expensive.
With most landlords requiring a deposit, a month's rent in advance and agency fees of up to £350 the costs add up.
Research by homelessness charity Crisis found these upfront costs can range from around £900 for shared accommodation in Yorkshire to over £2,000 for a one-bed flat in London.
This would be a significant amount for anyone, but for someone who is homeless it can be an insurmountable barrier.
This is on top of the fact that most landlords are unwilling to rent to someone on benefits, let alone someone who is homeless - research by Crisis found only 20% of landlords would be willing to let to homeless people.
Eventually Steve was put in touch with a charity in Elmbridge, Surrey, an area he knew.
Elmbridge is in Chancellor Philip Hammond's constituency and is one of the most expensive postcodes in the country. Rents and therefore deposits are very high.
Owning virtually nothing except for a few clothes, Steve had little hope of getting the money together for a deposit to rent.
Elmbridge Rentstart helped him find a suitable home and provided a six month bond on his deposit, as well as paying the first month's rent.
Instead of a cash deposit the charity provides a guarantee to the landlord to cover any damage to the property or unpaid rent, removing the financial risk.
If there is any damage to the property at the end of a tenancy the charity either tries to rectify the issue using volunteers, for example through redecorating, or will pay the landlord directly.
However, they found with the right support deposit deductions tend to be low.
Long-term solution
Rentstart also provided support to help Steve understand the process and the benefits he was entitled to.
"Without Rentstart's help I would probably have been dead," he said.
"I wouldn't have known where to start looking for benefits. I wouldn't have even known benefits were available. I would have been on the streets in the winter and I probably wouldn't have seen the winter through."
The scheme aims to find a long-term solution, matching tenants to suitable homes and providing ongoing support.
"I've been living here for four years. And it's because they did their research," he explains.
"They didn't just say 'well you're homeless, you're going here'. I knew the area, I knew the people and I knew where to look for work. I had connections."
Ahead of the Budget, Crisis is calling for the government to fund more Help to Rent schemes like the one in Elmbridge and a national rent deposit scheme.
This would provide a commitment from the government to guarantee a deposit for tenants who can't afford to pay one upfront.
A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said it was investing £950m up to 2020 to reduce homelessness and a further £2bn in affordable housing.
But Helen Watson, Chief Executive of Elmbridge Rentstart, said a government-funded rent deposit scheme would make a huge difference to organisations like hers.
"It would mean the really limited resources we have to hold to have our own bond scheme would be freed up to house more people in other ways," she says.
The Westminster Policy Institute estimated funding the scheme would cost £31m a year. But Crisis says the long-term annual savings could be up to £595m, by taking pressure off local authority services and preventing people becoming homeless, allowing them to move off benefits and back into work.
The Homelessness Reduction Act, which comes into force next year, places extra responsibilities on councils to prevent homelessness. Crisis says Help to Rent would help homeless people into the private rented sector, taking the pressure of councils.
Immediate help
Helen Watson acknowledges the need for more social housing but says the private rented sector could also offer solutions.
"With the private rented sector you can pick where you want to live. So if you've got problems in a particular area because the network's not good and you're trying to recover from a drug or alcohol problem, somewhere else, perhaps where you can find work, is a really good solution," she says.
"Of course we need more social housing but the private rented sector is a good solution when it's properly managed by the right sort of organisation."
Tom Say, a senior campaigns officer at Crisis, agrees.
"We absolutely need to build more social housing but that's a long term goal. It will take years to build that new housing to get the stock we need," he said.
"There are homeless people that need help right now and this is a quick way for the government to help those people."
Steve now works for Elmbridge Rentstart himself, spending his evenings locating homeless people in the area who might be in need of help. He says the Help to Rent scheme changed his life.
"Without the support and guidance it gave me, I'd be worse off than the guys I go out and help."
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Shell has said it has no imminent plans to resume operations on its four Brent platforms after an incident in the North Sea.
| A fender, which protects the legs of the Bravo platform and weighs several tonnes, fell off the installation.
Production at Bravo and the three other Brent platforms - Alpha, Charlie and Delta - was shut down as a result.
Shell said nobody was injured and inspections suggested there was no significant structural damage.
The company said it did not know when work would resume at Brent, which lies 150 miles north east of Shetland.
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My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money - and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here, Sian Williams, 32, from Gili Trawangan, a tiny island in Indonesia, takes us through a week in her life during the coronavirus pandemic. | Sian, who is originally from Hampshire in the UK, has lived on Gili Trawangan for the last eight years. Luckily, the island is still Covid-free because inhabitants were on a strict four-month lockdown where no one was allowed to enter or leave (and return), reducing the risk of cases.
Sian works full-time for an environmental conservation NGO, the Gili Eco Trust. She says there has been a strange transition from working on one of Indonesia's busiest holiday destinations to now what is a dead island.
With no tourism there are no jobs. And with a very uncertain future, she is just trying to spend as little as possible and is continuing to clean the island, working in waste management, sustainability and tree planting projects.
Sian's salary has been halved, to around £400 a month, and it doesn't cover living expenses, but her rent is paid until February and she is able to use her savings.
She hasn't considered returning to the UK yet as she is one of only two people working for the NGO.
With such a small community, she says they are very lucky that social distancing comes all too naturally, gatherings are small and end early. They have cancelled the weekly beach cleans of around 60 people a week, and have switched to solo clean-ups and tagging marine debris on social media to continue to keep the island clean and to stay positive for a quick return of tourism and the economy.
Over to Sian...
We have just returned from our third trip off Gili Trawangan since lockdown began in March. An unexpected getaway weekend to Lombok organised by my boyfriend.
We checked out at 11:00 after a beachside breakfast, a few laps of the pool and a mini beach clean. We paid for our slightly over-indulgent bar bill (and a cheeky massage) with my share being 2,287,500Rp. The resort had a private beach, infinity pool and amazing local cuisine. Such a treat!
On the way back to the island, stopped for provisions in Mataram city. After eight years in Asia (and being shamed by the Uncle Roger YouTube sensation) I finally bought myself a rice cooker 299,000Rp. Along with picking up some special cat food for one of my five cats that has an autoimmune disease. 100,000Rp for around a week of food. Found some accessories for a silver-themed costume birthday party at the end of the week and a pair of trainer socks (cos they had cats on them!) 91,000Rp and the rest of the costume will have to be made at home.
We were wiped out by the time we got back to the island, an ill-prepared monsoon rainfall meant we were pretty soggy and unmotivated to cook, so we ordered in our favourite plastic-free takeaway from Jali. Mains and a side were 88,000Rp.
Total spend: 2,865,500Rp (£149.50)
My Money
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After a brekkie of tofu scramble, I made a to-do list catch up from the weekend away and set off for my four-minute bicycle commute to the eco-shop I open once a week for eco-friendly supplies and zero-waste kitchen hacks for islanders - and the island's most extensive book swap shop.
After feeding six out of 10 regular stray cats that are suffering and hungry from the lack of tourism, the shop was swept, cleaned and ready to open. I was quickly distracted, rooting through our donated clothes store finding a second-hand silver(ish) playsuit and pair of boardies (shorts). Costume for Friday is coming together! Two items in our pre-loved charity shop come to 100,000Rp.
At 15:00, closed the shop up, fed the cats for the last time and headed to meet a friend at Trawangan Dive for a cool off in the pool. We caught up over a fresh watermelon juice, which Charlie claimed to be the best on the island (he wasn't wrong!). In exchange for a bunch of new movies and docus, two watermelon juices came to 70,000Rp.
This evening is our monthly book club meetup! Which has, over the years evolved into a wine appreciation evening and girly catch up. Hosted by Catherine, who fortunately also owns a Polynesian bar, Tiki Grove. For the first time in six months, we had Taco Tuesday! Even better in our own private closed down bar! Shared a bottle of wine and had an early night, so I didn't spend anything this evening.
Total spend: 170,000Rp (£8.90)
Up early at 05:00 to film the sunrise. I'm making a blog for the Headspace app about the turtle conservation that I run and it will be a one-off payment. Beautiful start to the morning and literally SO excited to be featured in my favourite app!
Followed by a quick HIIT workout in GiliFit and heading to my manager's place to work on some grant applications for our NGO, which currently has no funding. Tourism is the only industry on Gili T, and the Gili Eco Trust runs completely on donations. We have to act fast to find other sources of income, and are teaching ourselves to search for, and apply to as many grants as we can to keep our charity alive.
A quick stop at the island dump to get some footage of Indonesia's plastic waste problem. It is being highlighted next week by WWF in Norway. The dump is the reason why I started to live low-waste. To create rubbish and know where it ends up, is wrong on so many levels. Now we have a small under-counter kitchen bin which we empty every three to four months.
Wednesday is Pituq weekly veg box pick up day. Pituq Community Foundation started a "shop and drop" when we got locked down on the island as they operate on mainland Lombok. The profits of our package and plastic-free veggies go to feeding families suffering unemployment from the Covid crisis, so I see buying more plastic-free veggies as a donation to Lombok too.
This week came to 214,000Rp for the week's food for me and my boyfriend. So we pay half each of this plus delivery - or 107,000Rp.
Cheap and lazy evening, spaghetti and homemade vegan pesto and a movie.
Total spend: 107,000Rp (£5.60)
Today is my Mum's 60th birthday. Really gutted as I was meant to be at home in England right now celebrating it with her, but travel is so unsafe and I don't fancy spending half of my allotted home-time in quarantine, (regardless of the lax rules in the UK right now!) so her 60th birthday will now be rescheduled to next year. Sorry, Mum!
The whole island was awake to a 04:00 power cut. Luckily, early enough to wake up to check out the sunrise again. Once again, it didn't disappoint!
Zoom yoga is FREE today! Denise, my instructor, set up a 10-class islander pass (450,000rp). Covid times are biting down hard but this community is so supportive trying to keep options open for everyone to stay sane whilst we are not working. We went to Banyan Tree for kombucha and to join all the digital nomads that were hunting for a wifi connection and battery point, and ended up buying some cakes for my friend too. The total for a kombucha and three cakes was 122,000Rp.
Off for a quick haircut in the jungle garden of Pip. She gives an island price for an international standard haircut (and loved her cake!) and a chance for some gossip, a quick catch up and some donated pressies of tea, oats and bananas before she heads to England in search of a job. It's so sad that everyone is slowly leaving our island empty and deserted. One mop management job later, 300,000Rp.
Gave up on cooking dinner and Fabien ordered us pizza. My vegan pizza was 90,000Rp. Mid pizza, POOF another power cut. With the evenings not cooling past 29'C, we begrudgingly accepted that we couldn't not sleep another night and headed to Manta Dive for a date with the generator. Fab paid 200,000Rp for a room.
Total spend: 512,000Rp (£26.70)
Regular Debris Free Friday with the Gili Eco Trust isn't on today, so when I woke up, I stopped past the beach for a two-minute beach clean and then prepared for a Zoom interview about our turtle conservation. It finished in time to head to GiliFit for a quick workout before going to buy some eggs for breakfast. A tray of 30 eggs (50,000Rp) a box of matches (10,000Rp) and a bag of oregano (25,000Rp) later, I ate and sat down to some work emails.
We left for Clive's silver party at 16:00. Two bottles of silver spray paint later and my previous 1920s costume had a millennium spacey look. A DJ from Bali came especially, so I danced especially hard and together with Fab we racked up a bill of 1,120,000Rp. Just couldn't get enough of those Ginger Sailor cocktails! We paid half each and somehow cycled home.
Total spend: 605,000Rp (£31.50)
I will never learn to control how much I drink and today's hangover confirmed I had way too much fun last night. I ordered a vegan bagel from Kayu Café which took around three hours to eat, whilst binge-watching Suits. With only enough energy to stare at the garden (things that are alive and thriving make me feel better when I'm suffering a painful death) and to cook an evening meal, I decided upon my childhood ultimate favourite comfort food. My Mum's tuna pasta bake. Since tuna is extremely unsustainable to eat nowadays, and that I follow a strict low FODMAP (fermentable oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols), dairy-free veggie diet, I made the whole thing from scratch and successfully used every item of the kitchen (it's Fab's job to eat the food, and clean up after me ha!) First time I've made this and it won't be the last! Over half the tray left for lunch tomorrow.
Total spend: 150,000Rp on a takeaway brunch for two (£7.80)
1 can chickpeas, 2 tbsp lemon juice, ¼ chopped Nori sheet, fresh dill, 1 tbsp mustard,1 tbsp miso paste, 1 tbsp chia seed & 1 tbsp capers.
Smash it all up in a bowl and voila!
£5.90for six portions (serve with pasta, tomato sauce, cheese sauce and veggies)
I swear hangovers were invented to make you REALLY appreciate life after they have gone. A solid nine hours of sleep and a coffee on the porch in the sun and I'm ready for the day. Spent the morning in the dump next to my house, scavenging an old scaffold tower and some bamboo poles to make a bean trellis for the garden.
After a few repairs I've managed to turn the scaffold step into a set of shelves to put seedlings on where the cats can't get to them (or can they?… challenge accepted) and re-potted some loofah vines, beans, edamame and harvested one very small passionfruit. Gardening has been a time-consuming learning curve, I haven't inherited my Dad's horticultural skills! But seeds and cuttings are all propagated from around the island or the rainforest in Lombok which has made it a fun, relaxing and mindful activity throughout the lockdown.
My other favourite Sunday activity is making a roast dinner. Fab converted the spare room into a kitchen for my birthday when we moved in, I love it! We had crispy roast potatoes, baked sage tofu, Mediterranean veggies and marmite gravy.
Total spend: £0
Total spent this week: 4,409,500Rp (£230)
How does Sian feel about her week?
The splurge at the beginning of the week made up most of this pretty expensive week. We go to the mainland so rarely that I tend to panic buy provisions (especially now there is a shop with imported foods). I also know as soon as I have a bar tab, I am slightly more frivolous with my spending than paying cash. Made all the more painful as I don't remember paying it (thanks to strong cocktails and Fabien for looking after me!)
Even after eight years of living in Indonesia, the exchange rate still shocks me. On paper, £230 seems ok for a week's spending! But sadly due to Covid, my monthly salary is only around double this.
Tips for saving
Organise your day and plan what you need to reduce take-outs and plastic waste (coffee, lunch box, travel utensils, water).
My biggest tip for saving the pennies (and rupiah) is cooking everything from scratch. It's time-consuming cooking three meals a day, but right now time is what we have plenty of.
The cost of living of course, is a lot cheaper in Indonesia, but being a Muslim country with very strict alcohol policies, drinking heavily adds onto any weekly bill. If I could manage a month free of booze, it would surely help. Unfortunately, I am more than good at keeping my international cliché of being a boozy Brit...
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A year ago, a project to regenerate four run-down Liverpool streets won the Turner Prize - normally the preserve of the art elite. As well as shaking up the art establishment, the victory brought the winning area impetus, pride, attention - and tension. | By Ian YoungsArts & entertainment reporter
When Sumuyya Khader was five years old, her mother let her walk the short way from her house to Sam's newsagents on her own.
"It was two minutes away from where I lived," Ms Khader recalls. "So I was allowed to potter around. You knew everyone."
Twenty-three years later, the newsagent is boarded up - like a number of houses on the road.
But Ms Khader has returned. She came back to Cairns Street in Toxteth last year to be operations manager for Granby Workshop, a cottage industry that was set up to capitalise on the spotlight the Turner Prize put on the area.
Inside, Ms Khader and Jade Crompton, 25, craft terracotta lampshades and bespoke bathroom tiles and ceramic handles, which were originally designed for the houses in the Turner Prize-winning regeneration scheme and which are now being sold to the wider world.
The workshop is temporarily based in one of the empty terraced houses on Cairns Street, but in the new year it will to a permanent home - the old newsagent.
"Part of the reason I was so keen to get involved is I knew it as Sam's newsagents," Ms Khader says.
"With living down the road when I was a kid, it was something I was interested in straight away. I wanted to be involved in something creative and giving back to this area."
A year after the Turner Prize win, Granby Workshop is taking orders from around the UK as well as countries ranging from Switzerland to Japan.
The workshop is "the number one achievement" since the Turner Prize win, according to Lewis Jones from design collective Assemble.
Assemble were awarded the prestigious prize for their collaboration with the Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust (CLT) - a group of residents who have fought for years to bring the area back from dereliction.
"It's a way of directing that attention and publicity into something that could continue to benefit the neighbourhood," Mr Jones says of the workshop. "People from all over the world are placing orders for products and that helps everything here."
Down the road from the workshop is a row of three houses with doors painted different colours - yellow, blue and orange.
Five houses renovated by Assemble have already been rented out, but these three are the first to be sold.
They are empty as they await their new owners. Assemble's fireplaces - made using brick, slate and stone that was reclaimed from the houses themselves - are visible through the curtainless windows.
But the fact that these houses contain Turner Prize-winning designs has not been used to push up the prices. In fact, the CLT has deliberately sold them below market value.
"We don't want them to become 'Turner houses', if you know what I mean," says Granby CLT chair Erika Rushton. "Because we want local people to live in them forever."
In fact, priority has been given to those with a connection to the area, either themselves or through family, and who can afford the £90,000 asking price but would struggle to buy something on the open market. The average house price in Liverpool is £121,000.
Once they have bought it, the deeds also say they cannot sell the house on for a big profit - it must always be sold below market value, as calculated using the average Liverpool wage.
Next door to the Granby Workshop, a house is boarded up and a notice pasted to the door informs passers-by that anything of value has been removed.
On the other side, green hoardings surround the next two houses.
These were initially earmarked for habitation but have since been deemed uninhabitable - one has no roof.
So instead of being brought back to life as houses, work is starting any day now to turn them into a winter garden, with a glazed roof and rampant greenery.
Assemble came up with the idea after peering through the grill of a derelict house on a neighbouring street to see the front room being reclaimed by nature.
"It's really important to recognise what they [Assemble] did for the Turner Prize," says CLT vice-chair Hazel Tilley, 61, who has lived on Cairns Street for 25 years.
"They brought ordinary people into focus. It's a major political piece of art, I think, and it's beautifully done.
"It deserves more than the Turner Prize because what their art has done is it's helped to restore - not pride because we always had pride in our area - but our faith. These young people didn't know what couldn't be done, so they did it.
"Twelve months on, we've got the investment for the winter garden because of the Turner Prize. The winter garden is the most amazing, incredible thing and it will be four doors away from me. It's such a beautiful, beautiful idea."
Unlike the stereotypical Turner Prize trend-setter of yesteryear, Assemble do not appear to be in it for the notoriety or the money.
"They're still not rich," Mrs Tilley adds. "They don't work in a way that makes money. They work in a way that makes a difference. And that is the true calling of the artist. I have such a lot of respect for them and quite a lot of love for them."
The next major project may prove to be two roads down - Ducie Street, where every single house is empty and every window and door has been boarded or bricked up.
Since the Turner nomination, every house has been decorated with colourful murals - nothing to do with the official Turner project, but they deserve a prize of their own.
Around the corner, one critic has daubed the words "arty farty" on a brick wall. Some locals have clearly watched the Turner whirlwind with a large dose of irreverent scepticism.
Assemble and the Granby CLT have still only renovated eight houses over the four streets, with a possible five more pencilled in for now. Many more properties have been done up by the council, housing associations and private individuals, while others are still rotting.
The attention from the Turner Prize "brought stresses and strains as well as good things", Ms Rushton admits.
"It would be honest to say that. Some people really advantaged from that profile and publicity and not everybody did. So there were not exactly winners and losers, but that brought some tensions I think."
One year on, however, the experience has been good for the area as a whole, she believes.
"Historically, Toxteth had a really negative name because it once had a riot many moons ago," she says.
"And the Turner Prize has transformed a negative story into a positive story. It's done a good thing for us there."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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A schoolboy was injured when he was struck by a car near to a school in Coventry. | The crash happened near to Bablake School in Coundon Road at just after 08:00 GMT.
He was treated at the scene before being taken to hospital by ambulance for further assessment and treatment, West Midlands Ambulance Service said.
An ambulance and a paramedic officer were sent to the scene.
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West Midlands Ambulance Service
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For all the reports of trouble in their marriage, Beyonce and Jay-Z's joint On The Run II tour, which opened in Cardiff on Wednesday, was a two-and-half hour display of affection. | By Mark SavageBBC Music reporter
As they raced through more than 40 hits - from Crazy In Love to 99 Problems - the couple flirted, teased and held hands - not just when the spotlights were on, but deep in the shadows, between the songs.
At one point, Beyonce sidled up to her husband and started twerking, giving him the giggles. When he rapped about "the rock on your finger" in Upgrade U, she flashed her wedding ring, a big goofy grin spread across her face.
The show didn't shy away from Jay-Z's infidelity, which was dissected on songs from Beyonce's Lemonade album, and atoned for on his own 4:44, but the overall message was one of healing and redemption.
Stadium-width video screens showed images of the couple being torn apart and separated, their house on fire, before reuniting in a church and renewing their wedding vows.
"Endless love," read a message on the screen. Jay-Z's pendant put it more prosaically: "Bling for love."
"Urgh," you might be thinking, and rightly so, but the lovey-dovey stuff was just a backdrop to the night's soundtrack: a thrilling joyride through the stars' back catalogues that covered feminist anthems (Flawless); hip-hop classics (Dirt Off Your Shoulder) and the obligatory display of Beyonce's vocal force (Resentment).
The stars traded control of the stage throughout the show, which allowed for some clever transitions, as when the Arabian riff of Beyonce's Naughty Girl bled into Jay-Z's Big Pimpin'.
However, the show lacked the conceptual and political strength of Beyonce's recent set at the Coachella music festival.
Where that concert presented radical and powerful statement of black resilience and feminine power, the On The Run II Tour largely failed to settle on a theme, mixing up religious iconography with a confused metaphor about love and crime.
A simple greatest hits set would have been fine - but there were some issues there, too.
Beyonce unwisely chose to mould her song choices to Jay-Z's material, focusing on beat-heavy tracks like Diva and Formation at the expense of the chart hits the audience were clearly expecting.
That meant no Single Ladies, no Halo, and nothing from the Destiny's Child collection, while Irreplaceable was reduced to a one-line chant over a trap beat. Jay-Z also ran out of space for hits like Izzo (HOVA), Empire State of Mind and Hard Knock Life.
However, with up to 60 songs rehearsed for the tour, the setlist could easily change from night to night.
And despite those few glaring omissions, the crowd were rarely off their feet - with N****s In Paris and a funked-up Deja Vu shaking the Principality Stadium to its rafters.
Visually, there was plenty to feast your eyes on - from the how-did-they-do-that acrobatics of Beyonce's dancers to the police mugshots of Mick Jagger and Snoop Dogg that appeared during 99 Problems.
Jay-Z unexpectedly had more costume changes than his wife, who used one of his stage absences to address the #MeToo movement.
"Ladies, are we smart? Are we strong? Have we had enough?" she demanded during Sorry, before leading the audience in chant, the text of which is unprintable here.
By the end of the show, however, love was in the air again. As Beyonce performed her Ed Sheeran duet Perfect, home videos of the couple and their three children flashed up on the screens.
After holding hands throughout the song, Mr and Mrs Carter turned and held each other, eyes closed and oblivious for just a couple of seconds to the thousands of people watching them through their cameraphones.
Sure, it could have been staged but, for what it's worth, the lingering tenderness of the embrace seemed too unvarnished to be rehearsed.
"Thank you guys for sharing this beautiful night with us," said Beyonce as they walked away.
"It feels so good to be on stage with the one I love."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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In the northern hemisphere, cold and flu season is upon us. But the coughing, wheezing and spluttering masses that hit the streets each winter could, some scientists hope, soon be a thing of the past. | By Stephanie HegartyBBC World Service
The reason for this optimistic thought is the progress being made towards the creation of a drug known as an antiviral.
Just as antibiotics kill many different types of bacteria, antivirals could kill multiple viruses, from the ubiquitous cold and flu to the life-threatening hepatitis virus and HIV. They could even prove crucial in the case of viral epidemics like Sars and bird flu.
Existing antiviral drugs are tailored to specific diseases - HIV, hepatitis and certain types of flu for example. Vaccinations are also very virus-specific and have to be redeveloped at great cost as a virus evolves.
But Todd Rider, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is developing an antiviral drug called Draco, which has proven successful against all 15 viruses to which it has been applied in lab trials with human tissue and mice.
These include the common cold, H1N1 or swine flu, a polio virus, dengue fever and the notorious and fatal Ebola virus.
To produce it, Mr Rider took an unusual approach, "wiring together" two natural proteins - one that detects virus entry, and another that acts as a suicide switch that kills the infected cell.
"I studied both biology and engineering back in the dark ages and really wanted to combine those studies," he says.
"Everyone in both departments thought I was crazy."
The dream of a broad-based antiviral drug has for years been a holy grail for microbiologists.
Recent developments in biotechnology - especially the ability of computers to analyse reams of information on DNA and the genetic make-up of viruses - has allowed for great leaps in scientific understanding of how these micro-organisms work.
This has brought a few researchers closer to the goal of a broad-based antiviral, targeting the problem in several different ways.
Last year, a breakthrough study at Cambridge University showed that cells have an internal system which fights and kills viruses. It was previously thought that once a virus succeeded in entering a cell, infection was inevitable.
Dr Leo James, the author of this study, is now working on creating antiviral drugs that can latch on to a virus and destroy it inside the cell.
At Mount Sinai Medical School in New York, Professor Peter Palese has developed an antiviral drug that has so far proven very successful against influenza, though less so against other viruses.
And in a laboratory at the other side of the US, Dr Benhur Lee stumbled across a drug that seemed to be effective against several viruses including various pox viruses and Ebola. He soon realised it only worked against viruses that shared a distinct characteristic, a greasy outer membrane or lipid envelope.
Dr James maintains some scepticism about Mr Rider's study.
"It is potentially very exciting but because the results are so unusual and because it was published in an unusual journal it needs to be proven by others," he says.
PLoS One, the online journal which published the paper encourages ideas that challenge established thinking.
Draco appears to have a greater range than its rivals, but it will be several years before Draco can be tested on humans. First the drug will have to go through several rounds of testing on larger mammals.
"Translating from the lab to people is really quite hard," says immunologist Hugh Pennington, Professor Emeritus at Aberdeen University.
Viruses and human cells become closely linked on infection, as a result there are many possible side-effects of a drug like this.
In the 1950s, scientists thought they had come up with a similar broad-spectrum antiviral wonder drug, interferon.
The drug causes an infected cell to secrete a warning signal to other cells, allowing them to build up their natural defences. However, it also triggers the immune system to send white blood cells to the infection, which can cause inflammation of the area, fever, aches and pains.
"Interferons are fantastic drugs," says Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College London.
"They are still used today, to treat hepatitis C virus. But if you had a mild virus infection like a common cold you would not want to take interferon to deal with it because it would make you feel horrible, even worse than the cold was making you feel.
"The problem with using that same approach today to develop a broad-spectrum antiviral is always the worry that something in your strategy is going to trigger that same response."
Like interferon, Draco is a protein and has the potential to provoke an immune response. This could be especially problematic when the drug is administered a second time. But no immune response has been observed in mice so far.
For the average human, who suffers through a cold up to four times a year, antivirals could be the answer to days of misery - and businesses could save weeks of lost work hours.
But for those on the front line of healthcare, it could mean much more.
A broad-based antiviral could obliterate the threat of a global pandemic and mitigate health scares such as that caused by the Sars virus in 2002 or bird flu in 2009.
"No-one can say when the next pandemic will occur, it may be next year or it may be in 100 years' time," says Hugh Pennington.
"We're still in the niggling worry scenario even when we are very optimistic… If we had a wonder drug like Draco might be, we could sleep much easier at night."
Find out more about Todd Rider's work and the search for a broad-based antiviral on Discovery from the BBC World Service. Listen to the programme here.
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A woman arrested on suspicion of neglect and fraud by police investigating the deaths of 12 care home residents has been released. | Allegations of a lack of care and safeguarding for 43 residents at nine homes run by Sussex Health Care are being investigated by Sussex Police.
The woman, from West Sussex, was detained on Thursday morning under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act.
A force spokesman said she was released under investigation that evening.
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The puzzling - and thus far indecipherable - nature of an old manuscript has confounded some of the world's greatest cryptologists. Is there truly a code to break, or is it all an elaborate hoax? | By Simon WorrallNew Haven, Connecticut
I have come to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, at Yale University, to solve a mystery that makes The Da Vinci Code seem tame - a book no-one can read, in a language that doesn't exist, illustrated with plants and creatures that have never been seen on Earth.
It is known as The Voynich Manuscript, after the second-hand book dealer, Wilfrid Voynich, who claimed to have discovered it in Italy, in 1912. Since then, it has obsessed countless experts and generated numerous theories, both scientific and crackpot. "My favourite is that it is the illustrated diary of a teenage space alien who left it behind on earth," jokes the Beinecke's curator, Ray Clemens.
What surprises me is how small it is. I had expected an album-sized manuscript. But the book resting on a reading stand in front of me is about the size of a Penguin Classics edition.
Bound in a limp vellum cover the colour of old ivory, it contains 240 richly illustrated pages. The illustrations look like something Timothy Leary might have seen on LSD. Strange plants, astrological symbols, jellyfish-like creatures and what looks like a lobster. In one image, a group of naked ladies with alabaster skin shoot down what looks like a water slide. The text, written in brown, iron gall ink, reminds me of Tolkien's Elvish.
Some facts. Voynich was an ethnic Pole from Lithuania, in what was then the Russian Empire. Born in 1865, he was briefly imprisoned in Siberia for revolutionary activities before fleeing via Manchuria to London.
In London, he set up a second-hand bookstore, which became a centre for political exiles. Among them were Karl Marx and a Russian emigre, who adopted the moniker Sidney Reilly and became known to posterity as "The Ace of Spies".
Voynich claimed to have stumbled on the manuscript at a Jesuit seminary outside Rome, The Villa Madragone. Appended to the manuscript was what purported to be a letter written in 1665 by Johannes Marcus Marci, a former physician of the Holy Roman Emperor.
It stated that the manuscript had once belonged to Rudolf - and was probably the work of Elizabethan alchemist Roger Bacon. Two other possible authors are regularly in the frame: John Dee, magus extraordinaire and astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, and Dee's fellow alchemist, Edward Kelley. Voynich himself referred to it as "The Roger Bacon Cipher Manuscript".
Since then, it has been a Venus flytrap for brilliant minds. American William Friedman, one of the greatest cryptographers of the 20th Century, who created an institution recently made famous by Edward Snowden, the NSA, spent 30 years trying to crack the manuscript's code. New theories breed like mayflies. A retired American botanist recently claimed that some of the plants are of Meso-American origin. A British applied linguist claims to have translated 10 words.
So what is it? A cipher for buried treasure? A poisoner's handbook? The coded recipe for eternal youth?
Spoiler alert: I believe the manuscript is a forgery by Wilfrid Voynich himself. One of the most common tropes in the history of forgery is that of a rare book dealer "discovering" previously unknown manuscripts. Voynich is known to have had just this "magic" touch. He is also said to have acquired a large supply of vellum and to have used his knowledge of chemistry gained at the University of Moscow to replicate medieval inks and pigments. Readers' tickets for his shadowy friend, Sidney Reilly, show that among the books that the "Ace of Spies" studied at the British Museum library was Some Observations On Ancient Inks.
I believe that having forged the manuscript, Voynich then did what numerous other forgers have done - create a second document to validate the first and give it a plausible provenance. But until forensic tests are done on the ink and pigments - so far, only the vellum has been carbon dated to the 15th Century - the riddle of this mysterious book will continue to exert a powerful magnetic pull on present and future Voynichologists.
"To its deciphering he devoted unflagging toil," Marci wrote of the previous owner, in the letter Voynich claimed to have found in the manuscript. "As is apparent from attempts of his which I send you herewith, and he relinquished hope only with his life."
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I have to confess to something of an obsession with the Vietnam War, which most likely stems from the fact that pictures of the conflict began my lifelong love of photography. McCullin, Faas, Page, Huet, Burrows and so on: all those great photographers' work then spurred further interest in the war itself. | Phil CoomesPicture editor
So whenever I stumble upon a website showing some pictures from the conflict, I usually can't resist and click to see what's on offer. This week I did just that and found the work of Charlie Haughey, who it turns out was a rifleman with the 25th Infantry Division who served in Vietnam from March 1968 to May the following year.
Haughey was commissioned by his colonel to take photographs of the battalion for Army and civilian newspapers. The officer said: "You are not a combat photographer; this is a morale operation. If I see photos of my men in the papers, doing their job with honour, then you can do what you like in Vietnam."
The rifleman was stationed near Cu Chi and was part of Alpha Company, for whom he walked point or flank for 63 days. "On point, you work with the guy behind you. I didn't get to know people very well; we weren't like the band of brothers. It didn't pay to get to know people - we knew each other based on where we were from, or we had nicknames. Collins was from Chicago. He and I worked really well together. When we were on point together, I was up front, responsible for everything from the waist down - trip wires, booby traps, spider holes. He walked behind me, responsible for everything from the waist up. He flat out saved my life at least once, just from a little whistle or click or something."
His pictures of the unit have not been seen until now, having spent four decades in boxes in his home. Last year a chance meeting brought the negatives out into the open and eventually to a digital scanner with the work being catalogued by a team of volunteers. The work is now on show at the ADX Gallery in Portland, Oregon, in the north-west US.
The 28 prints are displayed in handmade frames, made by Charlie, who is now a retired carpenter.
You can follow the progress of the project and learn about Charlie Haughey's time in Vietnam on the Chieu Hoi Collection website.
All photographs copyright Charlie Haughey, A Weather Walked In/The Chieu Hoi Collection
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The boss of French media and telecoms group Vivendi is quitting his job following a dispute with his board over the company's future strategy. | Vivendi said Jean-Bernard Levy was stepping down "following a divergence of views on the strategic development of the group".
He is being replaced by Jean-Francois Dubos, who is currently the company's chief lawyer.
Vivendi's shares have been at a nine-year low this year.
Mr Levy's departure follows after a meeting of the company's senior managers to discuss the firm's strategy moving forward.
Vivendi's main telecoms business, SFR, has recently faced increased competition, which has seen it lose market share.
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The Sri Lankan military says an army major is to be face a court martial on charges of passing information to the Tamil Tiger rebels. | If convicted of treason the major faces the death penalty. Two other officers are being investigated by police on similar charges.
A military spokesman, Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, said all three were accused of handing classified information to the rebels for money.
He told the BBC that this case was the first time an army major has faced charges of giving information to the enemy.
Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said that if the police gather enough evidence against the other two officers, they too will face courts martial proceedings.
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The meeting lasted little more than an hour, around half as long as had been expected. Perhaps some members of the Joint Ministerial Committee (EU Negotiations), to give it its full title, had been up all night watching events on the other side of the Atlantic. | David CornockParliamentary correspondent, Wales
Or possibly they found they had more in common than their public stances would suggest. "We want the same things" insisted one committee member.
Not everyone sees it that way. The Scottish government's Brexit Minister, Mike Russell said afterwards: "I made it absolutely clear that membership of the Single Market and the benefits that flow from it, including free movement of labour, is essential for the economic prosperity of Scotland."
Welsh Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford told me: "Today we focused particularly on market access. and I was able to be completely clear that from the Welsh Government's point of view we know what we think we need. We need full and unfettered access to the single market without tariffs, without other barriers to trade."
'Immigration'
But can he get that without sacrificing control over immigration that is one of the UK government's "red lines"?
"There are trade-offs to come, quite certainly," he admitted. We weren't talking about justice, immigration and security issues today. That will form part of a future discussion, I'm sure, and we recognised that there will be 'read-acrosses' from all different agendas we discuss."
I put that point to Welsh Secretary, Alun Cairns, who was also at the meeting. He told me: "I don't accept that the issues are as binary as they are. We don't want to leave our sectors short of labour, that's not in the UK's national interest so we will want to come to an arrangement that works right for the UK, for all parts of the UK, but also allows us the best possible access to the single market. These are pretty fundamental and true for every part - they are as important for Scotland as they are to Wales, Northern Ireland and to England."
The meeting was chaired by [UK government] Brexit Secretary David Davis, who said that although there were "different standpoints around the table", the meeting was "constructive and amicable".
Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards welcomed the "warm words" but added: "The UK government must accept that before it can trigger Article 50, it must seek the approval of, not just the UK Parliament, but all of the national parliaments, including the National Assembly for Wales."
'Supreme Court'
There's little chance of the UK government agreeing to that demand, but the JMC politicians will meet again soon, although possibly not as soon as their lawyers, with the Welsh and Scottish governments seeking to intervene in the UK government's appeal to the Supreme Court over whether MPs should have a say before Britain begins formal Brexit talks.
Former Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb has said the decision to join the legal proceedings is "entirely unnecessary and opportunistic". The Preseli Pembs Conservative MP told the House of Commons on Monday: "Rather than seek to impede or complicate what should be an orderly exit from the European Union the Welsh Labour Government should spend more time talking to their own voters about why they turned out so overwhelmingly to vote for Brexit".
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Congratulations, you've made it through another year of news.
| We know it wasn't always easy, so here's a reward: our round-up of the moments that put a little smile on our faces in 2019. Many of them, inevitably, involve animals.
Animal rescue of the year
Winner
Spare a thought for the poor fat rat of Bensheim, which became stuck in a German manhole in February. She was eventually freed, but not before passers-by took embarrassing photos of her plight. "She had a lot of winter flab," one rescuer said, compounding the humiliation.
Runner-up (1)
Oil rig workers 220km (135 miles) off Thailand's coast got a shock in April when they spotted a brown dog paddling in the sea, possibly after falling from a trawler.
They plucked him to safety and named him Boonrod, a Thai word that roughly translates as "the saved one" or "survivor".
Runner-up (2)
In this case, the animals were the rescuers rather than the rescued (sort of).
Anticipating the threat of wildfires later in the year, staff at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California hired a hungry herd of 500 goats to eat flammable scrub around the building in May.
And so, when fires did strike in October, the library was saved because of the fire break the goats had created by eating the flammable scrub. Nice one, goats.
The 'picture says it all' prize
Winner
Back in August, millions of you read about the adventures of five-year-old Lucie, whose before-and-after photos from her first day back in school were picked up by a newspaper in her native Scotland, then shared around the world.
When her mum saw her return home, she asked what Lucie had been up to. "Nothing much," came the reply.
Runner-up
Edi Okoro, who took secret photographs of his girlfriend with an engagement ring for a month without her noticing. She eventually said "yes".
Sporting feat of the year
Winner
Just a year after being treated for breast cancer, Sarah Thomas became the first person to swim the English Channel four times non-stop. She did so over 54 hours, after which she said: "I'm pretty tired right now."
Runner-up
It was a close-run thing, pun intended. But all credit goes to Jasmin Paris, who broke the record for a 268-mile race by more than 12 hours. While stopping regularly to express breast milk. And hallucinating. On only three hours' sleep. In the middle of writing her PhD thesis.
The weirdest headlines from Wales
The most creative response
Winner
Copywriter Josh Thompson could see the writing on the wall at work when he was called in for a meeting: he was facing redundancy. His managers encouraged him to bring a "support person" to help cushion the blow, an option that is legally required in New Zealand.
But rather than bring a family member, a friend or even a pet, he splashed out NZ$200 (£100) on a clown called "Joe", who sat making animal balloons during the meeting. The screeching sound proved to be somewhat of a distraction.
"Boy, oh, boy, are they noisy," Josh said.
Runner-up
Top marks to Eimi Haga, a Japanese student of ninja history who handed in a blank paper. Her professor realised the essay was written in invisible ink, following the ninja technique of "aburidashi", which involves spending hours soaking and crushing soybeans to make ink.
The uplifting stories of the year (tie)
1)=
Jordan Kinyera, the Ugandan man who was only six when his father lost his land in a legal dispute. After Jordan trained as a lawyer and took on the case, the family won back the land this year - 23 years later.
1)=
The South Korean women who deliver yoghurt from motorised fridges, and keep an eye out for the country's most isolated people.
1)=
South African Uber driver Menzi Mngoma loves singing arias to his passengers - and after he featured in a video that went viral this year, he auditioned for the Cape Town Opera and was invited to perform around the country.
The 'hiding in plain sight' prize
Winner
When archaeologists began an investigation into a stone circle found in rural Aberdeenshire, they thought they had stumbled across a site that was thousands of years old.
So it came as a disappointment when they learned it was, in fact, only about 20 years old, and put there by a farmer.
Runner-up
When South African comedian Trevor Noah presented the Best Picture nomination for Black Panther at the Oscars in February, he quoted a saying in the Xhosa language.
"Abelungu abazi ubu ndiyaxoka," he said, "which means: 'In times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart.'"
But that's not what that phrase actually means. Its true translation is: "White people don't know that I'm lying," and no-one in the audience picked up on the joke.
The most adventurous animals of 2019
Winners
Raise a very small glass for the rats that feel less stressed when they drive tiny cars.
Runner-up (1)
The Russian eagles fitted with SMS transmitters who migrated a bit further than expected and ran up huge data roaming charges.
Runner-up (2)
What greater adventure than a trip to the Moon? It emerged this year that thousands of Earth's most indestructible animals - tardigrades, or "water bears" - were on board an Israeli spacecraft which crash-landed on the Moon.
Tardigrades are tiny creatures with eight legs and are presumably furious at having been dumped so far from home.
The Biggles Prize for amazing aviation action
Winner
Shortly after take-off from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport in August, an Airbus jet with 233 people on board struck a flock of gulls, causing both engines to fail.
With the jet full of fuel, the pilots managed to crash-land in a corn field in a belly-flop without lowering the wheels, to avoid debris flying off and rupturing fuel tanks.
This is how they pulled it off, and why it was called a miracle landing.
Runner-up
This gutsy helicopter pilot who rescued an injured skier from a steep slope in the Alps in January.
Scientific advancement of the year
Winner
There could be only one: the first ever photo of a black hole. Behold, the blazing space doughnut:
What's even more impressive is that the black hole is 500 million trillion kilometres away, and about three million times the size of our planet. Here's how the photo was taken.
Runner-up
This was a seriously close contest, but the discovery that men's left testicles are slightly warmer than their right is just edged out of first place by the black hole photo.
This research involved getting French postmen to stand naked for 90 minutes, because sure, why not?
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A driver had a lucky escape when a metal pole crashed through the front window of her car, up through the steering wheel, past a baby seat and out the back window, police said. | The woman, who hit bollards and the pole in Gunthorpe Ridings, Peterborough, was unhurt.
No-one else was in the car at the time of the crash at about 10:20 BST on Monday, and no other vehicles were involved, police said.
No arrest was made, they confirmed.
Officers, who came across the crash involving a red Renault Megane, tweeted to say the driver had a "lucky escape".
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We meet Sam Fender at Polydor Records in central London. He's about to do a suit-fitting for the 2019 Brit Awards, which will take place the following night and where he'll be crowned Critics' Choice winner . | By Jimmy BlakeNewsbeat reporter
It doesn't feel like his natural habitat.
"No it's not, but this is what I want," he says.
"I'd be complaining if I was at my mum's gaff in [North] Shields going, 'When's all this music stuff going to start working?'"
And with the release date for his debut album Hypersonic Missiles just announced - it's out on 9 August - Sam's "music stuff" has more than started working.
The 25-year-old's Brit win was followed by a North American tour, which included appearances on Jimmy Kimmel and a meeting with one of his Tyneside heroes, Sting.
"It's not sinking in but I don't think this sort of stuff should, there'd be something wrong with you if it did," he smirks.
"I'm quite happy being the rabbit in headlights... It's quite nice being the kid with the weird accent - like the Ant and Dec of the indie world."
With a new tour about to begin, his hectic 12 months might be a far-cry from his native North Shields - but Sam's gone the extra mile to ensure his music is a homage to his hometown.
"I don't live in London. I live in the place that I sing about.
"I didn't even notice stuff was taking off until I went to Newcastle for a mate's leaving-do and I had a load of kids asking for photos.
"That was surreal because in North Shields they knew me anyway so everybody's just like, 'Oh it's Sam, who cares?'"
It's there, in the same town as the pub where he was discovered by his manager, where Sam built a studio with his best mates to record the album.
"It was all made in North Shields and I'm really proud of that.
"It sounds big, cheesy and like the 80s. I've got saxophone on three tracks - it's pounding.
"I'm really proud of it. And utterly terrified."
This is the first hint that Sam's success is playing on his mind, but he's insistent he won't let it get to him.
"I put enough pressure on myself already - I can sit here and work myself into an anxiety-filled breakdown without worrying what everyone else is going to think.
"If people like it, great, if they don't - well it's fine because I'm not going anywhere.
"My manager in the pub always called us 'stupid boy' because I was the worst barman to ever grace their doors.
"I'll always just be stupid boy and I'm happy with that."
Some of Sam's recent singles, like Play God and Dead Boys, have pretty heavy messages in them but he says the album is "purely about what I'm seeing at the time".
"I try my best not to be preachy... So yeah I've got tunes about male suicide and serious things like that but then there are tunes about one-night stands, bad weekends and just being an idiot.
"I've got a song called Saturday on there which is genuinely about living for the weekend, which a lot of the country does.
"Music's primarily there to entertain people... I'm not on any sort of crusade with mine but I do think there's a lot to talk about at the moment.
"I'll dip into certain things because I find them interesting, not because I feel a necessity to change the world. I'm not clever enough to do that."
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The number of coronavirus cases in the West is skyrocketing, and countries have announced drastic measures, including school closures and lockdowns. | By Helier CheungBBC News
The outbreak hit many countries in Asia several weeks earlier - and some places have been praised for containing the number of infections. For example, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan all kept case numbers relatively low - despite their proximity to mainland China.
What did they do differently - and are there any lessons for other countries?
Lesson one: Take it seriously - and act quickly
Health experts agree on the same measures for containing the outbreak - test widely, isolate those infected, and encourage social distancing. Such measures are being adopted to varying degrees in the West now - but a key difference is that many countries didn't act as quickly.
"The UK and US lost an opportunity," says Tikki Pangestu, a former director of research policy at the World Health Organization (WHO). "They had two months from what happened in China, yet there was this perception that 'China is very far away and nothing's going to happen'."
China first reported cases of "mysterious Sars-like pneumonia" to the WHO on 31 December. At this point there was no confirmed human-to-human transmission, and little was known about the virus, but within three days Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong had all stepped up screening at border points - Taiwan even checked passengers on flights from Wuhan before they got off the plane.
As scientists learned more about the virus, it became apparent that people without symptoms could still be contagious. So testing would be crucial.
Lesson two: Make tests extensive, and affordable
Cases in South Korea spiked initially. However, it swiftly developed a test for the virus - and has now tested more than 290,000 people. It conducts about 10,000 tests daily for free.
"The way they stepped up and screened the population was really remarkable," says Ooi Eng Eong, a professor in emerging infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore.
South Korea had a rapid approvals system in place for infectious disease tests, following an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory syndrome in 2015 that left 35 dead.
By contrast, testing in the US was delayed - initial test kits were faulty, and private laboratories found it hard to get their tests approved. Many people struggled to get a test, and they were expensive. Eventually, free testing for everyone was passed in law.
Meanwhile, the UK has said that only those in hospital will be routinely tested. That makes it harder to identify cases with milder symptoms.
Prof Pangestu recognises that in some countries there aren't enough test kits. However, he describes extensive testing as "the most important priority", adding that "testing those who are symptomatic but not necessarily hospitalised and still spreading the virus is perhaps even more important".
Lesson three: Trace and isolate
It's not enough to just test those with symptoms - tracing those with whom they were in contact has been key.
In Singapore, detectives have contact-traced more than 6,000 people - locating individuals with CCTV footage, testing them, and ordering them to self-isolate until their results are clear. In Hong Kong, contact tracing goes back to two days before someone develops symptoms.
They have also adopted intrusive ways of ensuring that those ordered to self-isolate actually stay at home. In Hong Kong, new arrivals from abroad are required to wear electronic bracelets to track their movements, while in Singapore those self-isolating are contacted several times a day, and required to send photographic proof of their whereabouts.
Singapore has hefty penalties - including jail terms - for anyone who breaks a "stay at home" order. It stripped one offender of his residency rights.
Many countries in the West will find it hard to adopt such measures due to their larger populations, and greater civil liberties.
"We can do what we did because we're small," says Prof Ooi. "To replicate what we're doing in its entirety would not make sense, it has to be adapted to suit each country."
Lesson four: Early social distancing
Social distancing is considered one of the best ways of containing an outbreak.
But the later the measures are introduced, the more extreme they need to be to work. In Wuhan, China, where the virus is thought to have started, five million people had left the city before the shutdown began. This led to the government imposing the biggest quarantine in human history.
Both Italy and Spain were forced to introduce national lockdowns after their case numbers rose to the thousands. New York and California have ordered residents to stay at home, except for essential trips like buying groceries.
By contrast, schools are still running in Singapore, although large public gatherings have been cancelled. In Hong Kong, schools have been closed and workers encouraged to work from home - but restaurants and bars remain open.
Prof Ooi believes the difference is down to how quick governments were to implement social distancing.
"By the time a lot of countries had stepped up control measures, the number of cases was so large" that drastic steps were needed, he says.
Social distancing is affected by government decisions to ban gatherings or close schools, but it also depends on people being willing to take part. That's why public messaging - and individual attitudes - matter.
Lesson five: Keep the public well informed and on side
"Unless you get the co-operation of the public, your policies may not be adhered to, and enforcement only goes so far," says Prof Pangestu. "The important thing is to show that policies are based on scientific evidence."
China came under fire for being slow to acknowledge the outbreak. It allowed a large political gathering to take place in Wuhan even as concerns grew. The authorities also punished doctors who tried to warn others - sparking fury after one died from the virus.
It has since been praised for effectively slowing the spread of the virus, after imposing a massive lockdown and upscaling its hospital capacity. But critics say such extreme measures were only required because its initial response was slow.
In the US, President Donald Trump has often contradicted health officials about the severity of the outbreak and the number of test kits available. The government has also been unable to provide information on the number of people who have been tested, as many private laboratories have not been feeding data to the CDC.
"Outbreak response involves being transparent - that stops people panicking and hoarding things," says Prof Ooi.
Some governments have used technology to update residents in great detail. Hong Kong provides an online dashboard of all cases - which includes a map that shows the individual buildings where cases were found. South Korea issues mobile alerts letting people know if they were in the vicinity of a patient.
In Singapore, the government has been praised for its clear communications on coronavirus, including a speech by the prime minister which encouraged people to stop panic buying. Its measures have had widespread public support - helped by the fact Singapore has a long history of emphasising collective responsibility for national security. And Singaporean media does not tend to challenge the official line.
Lesson six: It's also down to individual attitudes
It's far too simplistic to say, as some have, that Asians are more likely to comply with government orders. In Hong Kong, public trust in the government is low - and there have been months of anti-government protests. But, in one of the densest cities in the world, many have voluntarily socially distanced themselves - with some even avoiding Lunar New Year gatherings, the equivalent of skipping Christmas events.
Prof Pangestu believes that while Hong Kongers do not trust the government, "they are very proud of Hong Kong, and see the outbreak as a threat to [the territory's] identity".
Meanwhile, Karin Huster, a Seattle-based nurse and emergency field co-ordinator for Doctors Without Borders, spent a month in Hong Kong working on coronavirus training. She noticed many there had a strong "individual sense of responsibility" because they remembered the 2003 Sars outbreak that hit the territory particularly hard.
That's also seen in the prevalent use of masks in part of Asia, which Ms Huster says is seen as a sign of "respect towards others".
She noticed that occasionally people would avoid getting into a lift with her because she was not wearing a mask. By contrast, in much of the West, people have specifically been told not to wear masks unless they are ill, and many Asians have experienced harassment while wearing one.
Experts in Asia agree that masks are far less effective than measures like hand washing, and that where supplies are limited, they should be left for healthcare workers. But there are different opinions over whether wearing a mask is worthwhile.
Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiology professor at the University of Hong Kong, argues: "Masks are not a magic bullet against coronavirus… but if everybody wears face masks, it probably can help, along with all the other measures [like hand washing and social distancing], to reduce transmission.
"The evidence base is quite thin, but we presume they have some effect, because that's the protection we give to healthcare workers."
When it comes to social distancing, Ms Huster says: "I think in America, people are so individualistic - it's going to be a little harder for us to sacrifice our 'freedom'."
She previously worked on the Ebola outbreak, where people were also required to wash hands more frequently and socially distance, and says the biggest challenge "was making people understand the need to change the way they were doing things".
Is all this enough to stop the virus?
Experts believe the more aggressive measures being put in place in Western countries will successfully slow the rate of transmissions over time. But, to get a sense of their next challenge after that, they could also look ahead to Asia. Despite having contained the virus, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong are now facing a second coronavirus wave, fuelled by people entering their borders.
And it's not clear how long this outbreak could go on for.
Prof Ooi is optimistic, as new infection numbers started falling within two to three weeks of lockdown in Hubei province. While China's shutdown was "drastic", he believes countries with softer measures should also be able to contain the outbreak within weeks.
"It should serve as inspiration for other countries right now - it's painful but it can be done."
By contrast, Prof Cowling worries that if a lockdown ends too early, local transmissions could start again.
"I don't know if social distancing can be sustained for the kind of time they need to be sustained. We can't really relax until there's a vaccine - which could take about 18 months," but "people in Hong Kong are already a bit tired after two months."
"Prolonged lockdowns are damaging for the economy, while an epidemic is damaging to public health… there's not a lot of good choices."
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The global race is on to develop 5G, the fifth generation of mobile network. While 5G will follow in the footsteps of 4G and 3G, this time scientists are more excited. They say 5G will be different - very different. | By Ed RamBBC News
If you're thinking, "Great, that's the end of my apps stalling, video faltering, and that everlasting load sign," then you are right - but that's only part of the story.
"5G will be a dramatic overhaul and harmonisation of the radio spectrum," says Prof Rahim Tafazolli who is the lead at the UK's multimillion-pound government-funded 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey.
That means the opportunity for properly connected smart cities, remote surgery, driverless cars and the "internet of things".
So, how best to understand this joined-up, superfast, all-encompassing 5G network? It seems that the term "harmonisation of the radio spectrum" is key.
A quick refresher: Data is transmitted via radio waves. Radio waves are split up into bands - or ranges - of different frequencies.
Each band is reserved for a different type of communication - such as aeronautical and maritime navigation signals, television broadcasts and mobile data. The use of these frequency bands is regulated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Currently, the radio frequency spectrum is a bit of a mess. As new technologies have been developed, frequencies for them to use have been squeezed into its gaps.
This has caused problems with connection speeds and reliability.
So, to pave the way for 5G the ITU is comprehensively restructuring the parts of the radio network used to transmit data, while allowing pre-existing communications, including 4G and 3G, to continue functioning.
100 times faster
5G will also run faster, a lot faster.
Prof Tafazolli now believes it is possible to run a wireless data connection at an astounding 800Gbps - that's 100 times faster than current 5G testing.
When Samsung announced in 2013 it was testing 5G at 1Gbps, journalists excitedly reported that a high-definition movie could be downloaded in less than half a minute.
A speed of 800Gbps would equate to downloading 33 HD films - in a single second.
5G's capacity will also have to be vast.
"The network will need to cope with a vast increase in demand for communication," says Sara Mazur, head of Ericsson Research, one of the companies leading the development of 5G.
By 2020 it is thought that 50 billion to 100 billion devices will be connected to the internet. So, connections that run on different frequency bands will be established to cope with demand.
Raising the capacity of a network is a little like widening a road tunnel.
If you add more lanes more cars can go through. And ordering makes it more efficient: some lanes for long-distance, others lanes for local traffic.
The huge rise in connected devices will be due to a boom in inanimate objects using the 5G network - known as the internet of things.
It won't be just products like remotely controlling your heating or that mythical fridge ordering you more milk, trains could tell you which seats are free while they are in the station.
Devices will be able to choose dynamically between which of three still-to-be-determined bandwidths they use to avoid any of frequencies from becoming overloaded, explains Prof Tafazolli.
"Only once these frequencies are set and established can product development begin," Ms Mazur adds.
The aim is for the first of the frequency bands to come into use around the year 2020, with the other two to follow soon after.
Another defining feature will be that, crucially, 5G shouldn't break.
"It will have the reliability that you currently get over fibre connections," says Sara Mazur.
Advances in antenna technology promise an end to sudden data connection drop-outs.
This will be essential for safety. Companies including China's Huawei are already talking about using 5G to let driverless cars communicate with each other and the infrastructure they pass.
Tech such as smart transport and remote surgery, where a human remotely operates a robot to carry out complicated operations, will rely on lower latencies too.
Latency refers to the time lag between an action and a response.
Ericsson predict that 5G's latency will be around one millisecond - unperceivable to a human and about 50 times faster than 4G.
This will be critical, for example, if doctors are to command equipment to carry out surgery on patients located in different buildings.
5G trial network
So how much will it all cost? Ericsson and Huawei say they simply don't know yet.
Until the product development phase starts it is too early to tell.
But that doesn't stop them from wanting to flaunt their research to the market.
In South Korea, which spearheaded work on 4G, Samsung hopes to launch a temporary trial 5G network in time for 2018's Winter Olympic Games.
Not to be outdone, Huawei is racing to implement a version for the 2018 World Cup in Moscow.
Despite such apparent rivalries and the huge sums each is investing in R&D, the bigger story is that they are co-operating to deliver 5G. And that in turn paves the way for potentially unmatched new technologies.
"That's until 6G comes along in around 2040," Prof Tafazolli remarks.
Watch more clips on the Click website. If you are in the UK you can watch the whole programme on BBC iPlayer.
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Aberdeen City Council is to attempt to save up to £125m over five years by reviewing the way services are managed and delivered. | About 150 staff have already accepted voluntary severance or early retirement, as the authority looks to reduce its workforce.
A report set to come before councillors next week says change is needed.
The new model would see director roles changed, and a restructure of senior managers is also to be looked.
In addition to the 150 staff who have already accepted voluntary severance or early retirement, 20 more have asked to take up the offer.
The report says this number is expected to rise over the coming months.
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Looking for free-to-see or hear online hidden gems is like panning for gold. Your hopes are raised then dashed, raised then dashed, raised then dashed, raised then dashed, raised then…exceeded! | Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter
Honestly, I wasn't expecting to find anything exceptional on the free part of the BFI's web-streaming player.
There were some evocative old ads, a war-time black & white public service film about the dangers of sneezing, and a bizarre low-fi striptease short. I was about to move on to pastures new when I happened upon a 78-minute movie in the "musicals" section (I was desperate) called Britannia of Billingsgate, 1933).
The blurb under the title described it thusly, "A star is born in this effervescent musical comedy that moves between Billingsgate Fish Market and the glamour of the film world." Quirky set-up, I thought, and clicked "play".
I watched the first couple of minutes, not bad.
I happily watched a couple more.
Then I recognised a very young John Mills (who would go on to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Ryan's Daughter in 1971).
And then there was a marvellous scene in a fish-n-chip shop in which this immortal line was uttered: "A love story with Skate? Whatever next!"
They don't write 'em like that anymore. I was as hooked like a Billingsgate cod.
It is a joy: a time-bound period piece from a bygone age, a proto-Hancock's Half Hour meets Dad's Army. Britannia of Billingsgate was never going to win an Academy Award, but it has aged remarkably well: a cheap bottle of 1930s plonk that's matured into something well worth savouring.
I wonder what David O. Russell would make of it?
The hot-tempered, super-talented Hollywood director is the subject of a first-class 40-minute profile by Vice, which can be found on Channel 4's All 4 on-demand service.
It is one of many in the Vice Guide to Film series, all of which are worth watching with insightful interviews and intelligent scripts read in an unhurried, chilled out style.
The David O. Russell episode is particularly good, taking us from his early films - Spanking the Monkey (1994) and Three Kings (1999) - through to his public humiliation when a video of him going absolutely tonto with Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees (2004) was leaked online.
When Robert De Niro is asked about the director's on-set bust-ups, the actor gives us a knowing smile accompanied with the understated observation, "he gets excited".
Jennifer Lawrence and Ice Cube concur in their own ways, but also make the point that they like working with him (as did Tomlin). David O. Russell isn't the first temperamental artist and he won't be the last, but he is a unique talent in contemporary film-making, which, ultimately, is what shines through in the profile.
Talking of temperamental artists, did you see the Miles Davis documentary on the BBC a couple of week's ago? If you missed it, I'd recommend taking a look on the iPlayer.
The spine of the doc is Davis's autobiography, which is read in broadly chronological order in a suitably raspy manner by Carl Lumbley (Davis had an operation on his throat that left him with a whispery voice).
You're probably familiar with the main staging posts of the legendary trumpeter's life: early success, heroin addiction, racism, perpetrator of domestic abuse, exile, and a popular comeback.
The doc is called Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, a title taken from his ground-breaking 1957 album, which was followed two years later by Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz record of all time.
It is worth watching the programme for three reasons: the music is spellbinding, the detail on the Davis story is illuminating, and the interviewees - including Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock and Frances Taylor - are revealing.
You'll probably find yourself going down a Miles Davis-shaped internet rabbit hole, which, if you're anything like me, will start with this 1986 clip from The Dick Cavett Show (the best chat show host of all time), in which a badly microphoned Davis gives a baby-faced Nicholas Cage a trumpet lesson.
What could be better than listening to Miles Davis?
Well, there's this: A recording of birds tweeting a spring chorus recorded by Chris Watson for the very special Foundling Museum in London.
Briefly, the Foundling Hospital was established in 1741 to care for abandoned babies (estimated to be around a thousand a year in the capital), and provide them with an education as they grew up. The artist William Hogarth and musician George Fredrick Handel were early supporters, eliciting artworks from friends to support its good work (Handel donated an organ and gave an annual fundraising rendition of the Messiah).
It closed in 1954 having educated 25,000 children, with the Foundling Museum opening fifty years later.
Wildlife sound-man Chris Watson recorded his Dawn Chorus on the site of the original 18th Century Foundling Hospital in 2014, thereby making a poignant link between past and present.
It can usually be heard on the oak staircase at the Foundling Museum, but not at the moment, because it's closed.
It is the perfect audio experience for these isolated times, a sensuous connection with our natural world, and a good example of how a museum can still serve the public when shut.
The most common institutional response thus far has been to offer virtual tours with 360-degree views. Frankly, I find them a little cold and detached. The last thing I'm looking for right now is desolation, even if it's in a beautiful place.
There is one exception, though, which is the virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel.
There are some places where it feels ok to be alone, and this glorious building in Vatican City is one of them.
Nothing can beat the real thing, of course, but this tour does a decent job of doing justice to Michelangelo's frescoed ceiling.
It is one of the greatest works of art in the world (all the more astonishing when the artist considered himself more a sculptor than a painter), a masterpiece you can enjoy whenever you fancy thanks to the high-res photography and clear navigation of this tour.
Finally, have you seen or heard anything free online you'd like to share? If so, do tweet me your recommendations, and I'll make the best the basis for next week's review.
Until then, enjoy this lot.
Recent reviews by Will Gompertz
Follow Will Gompertz on Twitter
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A rare Ferrari sports car found rusting in a French farmhouse under a pile of old magazines has sold for 14.2m euros (£10.5m; $16.2m) at auction in Paris. | The blue California Spider was hidden away for more than 50 years.
One of only 37 ever made, it was once owned by the French actor Alain Delon and was discovered alongside dozens of other classic models.
An auction house official said the find was the motoring equivalent of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb.
The name of the buyer was not revealed.
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka has issued a statement urging the country's people to be magnanimous in celebrating
the government's victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels, a victory which he formally announced on Tuesday. | President Rajapaksa has issued this special statement about the manner in which victory should be celebrated - an indication,
perhaps, of the sensitivity of the end of this war with its ethnic origins.With the national flag being raised all over the
country, the president said people should ensure that what he called the outpouring of joy at the defeat of terrorism "leaves
no room for anyone's feelings to be hurt in any manner".
The celebration, he said, should be expressed "with magnanimity and friendship towards all".
Some members of the Tamil minority, and a group of leftist parties, say Tamils and Muslims have in some cases been harassed
or insulted or forced to dance by people celebrating in the streets.
India
The government has been in talks with senior visiting Indian leaders about the situation of more than a quarter of a million
ethnic Tamil refugees housed in camps in the north.
The Sri Lankan and Indian governments issued a joint statement saying Sri Lanka plans to allow the bulk of the displaced Tamil
civilians in the north to return to their villages within six months.
The undertaking came in meetings between senior officials here and India's visiting foreign secretary and national security
adviser. The statement said there were also plans to dismantle as soon as possible the camps in which the refugees are staying
in overcrowded conditions with limited food, water and sanitation.Preparing for people to return to villages in the ravaged
north will not be easy. But India is promising help with demining and rebuilding.
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School books aren't often the subject of street protest, but in South Korea a row over a government plan to write a single history textbook brought protesters to the streets of Seoul last month, with police using water cannons to disperse them. | By Stephen EvansBBC News, Seoul
History here is not a dry subject confined to academia but a topic that exercises the passions of South Koreans.
Currently, a range of books by different academics are on offer in the country's schools, but the centre-right government thinks they are biased to the left and wants to replace them with a version it approves.
"The current textbooks have some mistakes so we want to revise them and correct the mistakes," the official in charge of the project, Park Sung-Min, told the BBC. "The authors don't want to change their point of view, so the government will make an accurate textbook".
One minister said that school books should teach "the proud history of South Korea, which has achieved both democratisation and industrialisation in the shortest time in world history".
Another conservative minister alleged the current versions of history were too uncritical of North Korea: "One textbook, for example, used the term 'dictatorial' only twice when writing about North Korea, but as many as 28 times about South Korea."
The government's plan has caused outrage both inside the country and around the world.
Prof Chung-in Moon of Yonsei University in Seoul told the BBC: "Why should we have one version of a text-book? We need multiple views so students can choose. History can be subject to multiple interpretations."
There are wider questions about what the study of history is for, according to Owen Miller, a Korean studies scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London University.
"Is history simply a tool for establishing loyalty to the nation or is it about producing critical citizens who can draw lessons?" he said.
Presidential controversy
The government's plan is so contentious because the current president, Park Geun-hye, is the daughter of a previous president, Park Chung-hee.
The elder President Park, who was assassinated in 1979, is a controversial figure.
As a military officer, he led a coup which took power in 1961. Extreme brutality was used by the security agencies under his presidency.
But he is also widely credited with driving through South Korea's super-fast industrialisation. He ordered the country's rich to invest their money in industries which he dictated they should build from scratch.
President Park is, accordingly, celebrated as the founder of South Korean prosperity. At his birthplace, for example, there is a shrine with a huge statue (reminiscent, incidentally, of the style of statue used to idolise leaders in North Korea).
But the plaques alongside it make no mention of President Park's dark side.
His record in the war when he served the Japanese is absent - and collaboration with the Japanese colonialists remains a hot issue in Korea. No pictures of him in a military uniform are apparent.
Critics of the government today fear that the new history textbook will have a similar, sanitised view of the past. And they assert that the plan is dear to the current president who wants to whitewash her father's legacy, scrubbing away the dark spots.
Opposing views
There are other areas of contention where the left and right are divided over how to read history.
The causes of the Korean War, for example, are disputed. For the right, it was started unambiguously by North Korea in an unprovoked aggression.
For some on the left, it was more complicated, with an incipient civil war over issues like land ownership already underway before the North invaded in 1950.
On this leftist view, there is some sympathy for North Korea, which is seen in parts of the left as a victim of the same civil war rather than as the outright aggressor.
South Korea is not alone in having a battle over history in the classroom.
Japan is having a very similar row, with conservatives wanting the wartime brutalities of Japanese soldiers downplayed and the status of disputed territories asserted in the classroom as being of undisputed Japanese sovereignty.
History in this part of the world is alive and contentious.
As it is in Texas where the state's board of education approves books for use in classrooms. There are hearings which are often emotive, with right and left disagreeing profoundly on the interpretation of events like slavery.
This year, a 15-year-old student noticed that slaves were referred to in one textbook as workers. He took a picture of the page, put it on the internet and the image went viral.
There is now a debate in the state about whether professional historians should get more say in the selection of approved textbooks.
In his novel 1984, George Orwell cited a fictitious totalitarian government slogan: "Who controls the past controls the future."
South Korea, Japan and Texas where the current rows over textbooks are taking place are not totalitarian states. In truly despotic places governments control history teaching completely.
But in all three places, opponents of government fear an erosion of democracy.
History matters. It's about politics and it provokes all the passions of politics. They know that in Seoul, Tokyo and Austin.
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A man has been left with a head injury after a gang broke into his home in North Lanarkshire and beat him with hammers. | The four unidentified men entered the property on Moffathill in Airdrie at about 17:00 on Tuesday.
They carried out what police say was a targeted attack, leaving the man with head injuries that needed hospital treatment.
Officers have launched an investigation and inquiries are continuing.
Det Con Paul James has urged anyone with information or who saw any suspicious activity in the area to contact police via the non-emergency line.
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The US insists that its opposition to Huawei technology being used in key information systems stems entirely from security concerns: the fear of "back-doors" in the software or the relationship between the Chinese State and its major high-tech companies. | Jonathan MarcusDiplomatic correspondent@Diplo1on Twitter
Of course, there may be a good dose of old-fashioned commercial rivalry as well. These are the technologies after all that will shape the world's economic future.
But is there something more? Are we witnessing the first significant engagement in something that is much more than simply a conventional trade war?
For years commentators have been talking about China's rise: a shift of economic power to the East and the relative decline of the US. None of this was likely to happen without friction - but now though, the US is fighting back.
Spokesmen talk about preparing for a new era of global competition. In the first instance the discussion is military - re-orientating the US armed forces away from fighting insurgencies and regional wars to prepare for state-on-state conflict, with Russia and China as the peer competitors.
But in the struggle with China, the economic dimension is fundamental. At one level the Trump administration appears determined to use its economic muscle not just to constrain a company like Huawei, but also to force Beijing to open up its markets and change aspects of its economic behaviour that have long-concerned western companies seeking to do business there.
Beijing, of course, sees something different going on - a developing campaign to contain China's rise. And it may be right.
This battle is about much more than just business practices and commercial markets, it is a struggle over the most basic underpinnings of national power with huge strategic implications. To put it another way, the West is slowly re-learning the simple fact - one that Beijing has assimilated all too well - that economic muscle is the foundation of global power and that economic strength is the precursor of military might.
It is a truism that the West has taken for granted for more than two centuries, but the development of market capitalism and the military revolutions of the 17th Century were inter-linked. It was commercial and economic power that enabled the technology for military innovation, and this, in turn, facilitated the sea-borne empires of the 17th and 18th centuries and the steam-driven empires of the 19th.
When the US fully supplanted Great Britain as the dominant power in the West at the end of World War Two, for a brief moment the world had a single nuclear-armed global superpower. Of course the Soviet Union sought to rival the US in terms of its political and economic model, but it could not sustain the trappings of a military superpower over time. And with the collapse of Soviet communism, the US once again emerged as the sole global player with real military reach. This was the "unipolar" moment which now, in retrospect, seems all so brief.
The rivalry between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War years is instructive. Not because it is a parallel for today's growing tensions between the US and China, but rather because of how different it was. There was simply no equivalent to the current economic rivalry.
The Soviet Union's economy was largely cut off from the West - its technical development circumscribed and comparatively backward except in a few key areas. Western trade restrictions prevented the export of all kinds of technologies to the communist bloc.
China is an entirely different matter. Its huge economy and manufacturing base are hard-wired into the international economic system. It is probably a bit late to try to shut Beijing out of key sectors of economic activity. The pace of China's rise is almost unique. Some ten years ago the US economy was still three times the size of that of China. No longer.
In modern times the US has never faced an economic competitor of equal size let alone one that will out-pace it. This is entirely new. And it is, belatedly perhaps, prompting a fundamental rethink of the terms of economic competition: a rethink that puts economic power explicitly back where it always should have been, as the central foundation of national strategy and national power.
This of course is something the Chinese have understood all along. Nineteenth century China was the victim of western expansionism and buccaneering trade practices. It is a history that is well-remembered there, whereas in the West, the Opium Wars or France's Tonkin campaigns - its early forays into Indo-China - are largely forgotten.
China's "Belt and Road" initiative - its expansive plans for close economic ties with a chain of countries - was not solely about markets and access to raw materials, but reflected a fundamental strategic effort. This has been bolstered by a long-standing programme of buying up and developing essential port facilities around the globe.
It was a conscious policy to secure China's economic future as the key determinant of national power.
The "Belt and Road" initiative was undertaken with the understanding that the US and Japan would not necessarily be China's main trading partners in the long-term. China has tapped into huge markets throughout the developing world - literally billions of people. The Chinese economy may be faltering right now (at least in relative terms) but as one well-informed US China-watcher told me, "they have engineering talent, a focused leadership, a market orientation and long-term horizons".
President Trump has seemingly decided to draw a line against Chinese competition. A variety of regulatory changes in the US seek to curtail China's access to US knowhow and critical sectors of the US economy.
But will it work? Will Mr Trump himself stay the course or enact one of his customary U-turns? His recent comments on concessions regarding Huawei seem to underscore his transactional rather than strategic approach to foreign policy. But this is an issue way bigger than Mr Trump and will challenge multiple US administrations to come.
That though is a short-term concern. The fundamentals of the strategic competition between the US and China are clear and are not going to go away. Efforts to decouple their two economies will cause pain in the short-term for both (and probably in the long term too). But the concern is that the worsening economic tensions are carrying over into the security realm, raising real fears of conflict, either by accident or design.
Many of Mr Trump's domestic political opponents, while accepting that there is "a China problem", nonetheless disagree with the way he is setting about resolving it. International economic institutions need to be refreshed, they argue. Trade and security legislation need to encompass the challenges posed by new technologies like artificial intelligence. And they fear that Mr Trump is pursuing an altogether too-narrow and nationalist approach.
Above all, they say, allies need to be kept on side. If this resolves down to separate economic battles between China and Japan, between China and the EU, or between China and the US, Beijing will have the upper hand.
There was a time when the essential approach of the US to China's rise was to seek to make it a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system. It was essentially saying that China would be accepted if it played by the prevailing economic rules.
But now China has risen and it is a process that will not stop. Not surprisingly it has some ideas of its own. Now much of the talk is about containing China. But this simply raises the question, is China simply too big to be contained?
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The first official photographs of Prince George have been released. | The baby - who is third in line to the British throne - is pictured with his parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The pictures were taken by the duchess's father, Michael Middleton, in the garden of their family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire.
Taken earlier this month, they show the royal couple, Prince George and their black cocker spaniel, Lupo.
Tilly, a golden retriever belonging to the Middleton family, can be seen lying down behind them.
The photographs of Prince George, who was born on 22 July, were released by Kensington Palace.
On Monday Prince William, giving his first interview since becoming a father, told CNN: "He's a little bit of a rascal, I'll put it that way.
"He either reminds me of my brother or me when I was younger, I'm not sure - but he's doing very well at the moment."
BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the new family look "unselfconscious, relaxed and happy - much like most couples might look with their first-born baby".
He added: "Of course they're aware of what's expected of them. There will be staff - a nanny - to help in due course, but for the moment it's all rather informal and many might think, refreshing."
Renowned photographer Terry O'Neill said he thought the pictures were "absolutely charming".
"It reminded me when I first started photography for myself - I just went for the light, and it was really interesting lighting. As a matter of fact when I heard about these pictures, I thought 'Who have they got to do these pictures' - and the thought crossed my mind they might have asked the Queen because she's quite a good photographer - I thought that would be one up to the paparazzi."
The cultural and education manager of Magnum Photos, Fiona Rogers, told Radio 4's Today programme the photograph of the couple and Prince George with the family's dogs was "technically not the most accomplished photograph".
"It's a photograph that any one of us could have in our family albums," she said.
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It is hard to know where to begin in describing the savage indictment by regulators in the US and UK of how JP Morgan Chase came to lose a breathtaking $6.2bn from the notorious "London Whale" trades. | Robert PestonEconomics editor
However there seem to me to be two big issues:
1) How and why the reputation and good name that JP Morgan boasted for generations was no guarantee of either competence or honesty
2) The lamentable transatlantic arrangements for regulating and supervising a bank of critical importance to the functioning of global markets and the economy.
The aggregate fines and penalties of $920m imposed on JP Morgan by three US regulators and one British regulator may be wholly fitting - but it would surely have been preferable for these regulators, or at least one of them, to have had better oversight of what was going on in Morgan's Chief Investment Office and the so-called Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) that generated the humungous loss.
Regulatory gap
Here's the gaping supervisory flaw. The poisonous SCP was built and traded in London.
But it was part of a subsidiary of Morgan which was American and was under the oversight of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC); and the subsidiary was in turn owned by a holding company, whose lead regulator was the US Federal Reserve.
This means that the formal responsibility of the British regulator - at the time the Financial Services Authority, which has since been superseded by the Financial Conduct Authority - to keep the London-based part of the CIO on the straight and narrow was a bit fuzzy.
If the CIO had been a UK subsidiary of JP Morgan, the duties of oversight of the FSA would have been less ambiguous.
Or to put it another way, the FSA was supervising the CIO with - perhaps - one arm tethered behind its back.
Even so, the FSA registered concerns with JP Morgan about the size of the CIO and the risks it was taking.
How did Morgan respond?
Well one verdict from the Financial Conduct Authority today is that Morgan was not "open and co-operative" with the FSA, and the FSA was "deliberately misled" by Morgan on one occasion in the first half of 2012 about the extent of the losses and other serious lapses.
It was this breach of all banks' duty to supply appropriate, accurate and timely information to regulators that led to the biggest chunk of the British $220m (£138m) fine imposed on Morgan by the FCA.
Reckless management
The beaching of this Whale may well therefore re-open the debate about how the overseas operations of international banks should be supervised and regulated.
To put it in the jargon, it once again raises the question whether economically important activities of banks away from the mother country should be forced to become "subsidiaries" registered in the places where they operate rather than "branches" of the foreign based bank.
To perhaps labour the point, if the CIO in London had been a UK registered subsidiary of JP Morgan, as opposed to being a branch of the US bank, it would have been much more clearly the duty of the FSA to deter it from being reckless and dishonest.
All that said, effective regulation and supervision can reduce the scale and frequency of banking disasters, but cannot eliminate them.
Most would say that bank management, directors and owners should be most held to account when things go wrong.
So, for someone of my generation, what is shocking about the saga of the Whale is that for all my professional life JP Morgan has been seen as among the world's best managed and best behaved banks.
But what regulators have uncovered too late is that a huge part of this bank - the notional size of the SCP was $51bn at the end of 2011 - was being managed incompetently and recklessly.
Huge punts
Before elaborating on JP Morgan's fall from grace, it may be worth reminding you what the SCP was.
Created seven years ago, it was largely a vast collection of "credit instruments", with big positions in indexes of Credit Default Swaps.
Presumably a good number of you now fear I am speaking Martian.
So what you need to know is that a credit default swap is insurance against a company going bust. And an index of credit default swaps groups together loads of different credit default swaps, although usually swaps that share certain characteristics.
In theory, JP Morgan was trading this stuff in the SCP to offset its exposure to the fortunes of big companies via its loans to them. In practice it was taking huge punts on whether at any one time the market thought there was a bigger or lower probability of companies going bankrupt.
When things went right - which was quite often when things went very wrong for real businesses - the SCP generated big profits. Good news for the SCP, for example, was the collapse into bankruptcy of American Airlines, which generated $400m for it.
Woeful
The fateful credit default swap index for JP Morgan was the "IG9 10-year" index - which grouped together swaps for good quality, low risk companies - to which we will return.
Anyway, the damning findings against JP Morgan are these:
Worse still, these traders subsequently hid losses.
Frantic
There is something else, of particular interest to me, given how often I bang on that the global Basel Rules for assessing the riskiness of banks' activities have been at best useless and at worst highly damaging to the health of the financial system.
This is to do with they way that those who ran the SCP tried to comply with an instruction from their bosses to reduce the size of their trading book, or rather the "risk-weighted" value of the book based on the Basel rules.
Rather than selling assets, which would have been the sensible thing to do, they tried to come up with a new valuation model that would exploit the elasticity of the Basel rules to shrink the perceived size of the book by accounting (and not in any real economic sense).
In the event, the SCP grew and grew in size, as imprudent new trades were done in a frantic attempt to reduce escalating losses.
And, as the FCA says, at least one set of these trades was an attempt to manipulate a market price - that of the IG9 10-year index (I told you it would return) - and that this was a breach of the requirement to "observe proper standards of market conduct".
So is today's humiliation as bad as it gets for JP Morgan?
That is difficult to say, because the FBI is taking a look at what went on, and the FCA is liaising with the Serious Fraud Office about it, and the US derivatives regulator, the CFTC, is yet to pronounce.
Today may be a black day for JP Morgan, but it may not yet be the blackest.
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The Royal Welsh Show posted a profit of nearly £210,000 last year after record-breaking visitor numbers, says the society behind the event.
| The four-day show in Llanelwedd, Powys, attracted its highest ever attendance of 241,099 in July 2012.
The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society said the event made a surplus of income over expenditure of £209,247 which is slightly up on the figures for 2011.
The society's Winter Fair and Spring Festival also made a profit.
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Windows 8 marks what is arguably the most radical tech launch of the year. | Microsoft aims to leapfrog the competition by offering a touch-based, dynamic, futuristic-looking interface which can run on processors designed for both high-spec computers, and chips more commonly associated with smartphones.
Its market-leading status is at stake.
More than 1.5 billion devices currently use a version of Windows, making it by far the most installed operating system, according to tech research firm Gartner.
But investors are more concerned about the firm's growth prospects amidst growing competition for customers' cash.
"We think the industry changed with the iPad launch because the tablet is effectively a PC - it doesn't need to be connected to a network to work and runs third-party applications," Steve Brazier, chief executive of research firm Canalys, says.
"Once you segment the market that way, Windows share of the global PC market has fallen to 72%. Three years ago that would have been over 95%.
"If you add the PC market together to the smartphone market - which we call the intelligent device sector - Windows share falls to 32%."
Windows 8 and its close relation Windows Phone 8 are designed to reverse that trend. One thing is certain: Microsoft's efforts will have industry-wide ramifications.
A study by Gartner indicates worldwide PC shipments were 8.3% lower than the previous year in the July-to-September quarter. That spells trouble for companies including HP, Dell and Acer which have seen sales decline as a consequence.
A successful launch might recharge demand, but first they must face the prospect of a challenge from Microsoft's own tablet, Surface.
The BBC asked a selection of industry experts for their views of Microsoft's new products:
SINK OR SWIM
Raimo Lenschow is Barclays bank's software analyst. He says Microsoft's share price and wider fortunes hang in the balance.
In our view, Microsoft needs a successful tablet to prevent an erosion of market share and loss of earnings from its core Windows and Office businesses.
The key question on our and most investors' minds right now is how much traction the Windows 8 system and Surface tablet can gain.
A success could spark a comeback story for the company, while failure would reinforce concerns about the firm's core products.
Microsoft's management has remained fairly reticent about providing forecasts for sales and the expected adoption rate of the products, which is likely due to the fact there could be a wide range of possible outcomes.
What's more, for the Windows 8 launch the situation is somewhat different from previous launches, as the strong momentum in the new tablet category from the iPad and Android-powered devices is negatively impacting the PC business, and hence raises questions as to whether previous cycles are still a good indication for the current launch.
Given the lack of certainty, we prefer to wait on the sidelines before making any detailed predictions about the product's success.
Although the new tablet will likely have meaningful sales right from the start, the addition of a significant hardware product to Microsoft's business model is likely to put pressure on its profit margin.
FULL-FAT OR SLIMLINE?
Sarah Rotman Epps is a senior analyst at the market research firm Forrester. She warns that Microsoft risks confusing consumers by offering two flavours of its new operating system.
Most consumers don't pay attention to the chipset in their device, but Microsoft's latest update to its Windows operating system forces buyers to confront the trade-offs of chipset choices.
It gets confusing quickly: There are two versions of Windows to choose from, Windows 8 and Windows RT.
Windows 8 has two choices of chipsets: x86 (such as Intel Core i5, what your PC is probably running today) and new x86 system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs from Intel and AMD, which function more like the chip in your mobile phone.
Windows RT works only with ARM-based chip designs by Nvidia or Qualcomm. Here are the trade-offs that will matter to most consumers:
• Battery life and boot time versus "performance": Windows devices with SoC and ARM chips have the longest battery life and the shortest boot time, but they won't perform as well for intensive computing activities. The Microsoft Surface running Windows RT that I've been testing stutters while playing 1080p video, for example, but Windows 8 tablets running Core i3 or i5 don't have this problem.
• Task flexibility: Windows RT does not allow users to do activities like install an alternative browser, install plug-ins (which are required to make many websites work), or access Flash websites unless they are pre-approved by Microsoft. Windows 8 devices let you do anything you would normally do on a PC.
While RT devices have longer battery life, many consumers may find the trade-offs in terms of task flexibility too restrictive.
HITTING HACKERS
Rik Ferguson is director of security research at the anti-virus firm Trend Micro. He thinks Microsoft has made several advances in its new operating system.
Microsoft has taken advantage of computer hardware to increase and speed up security in Windows 8. Dedicated computer components can now be used to ensure that malicious code is not loaded as Windows boots up and self-encrypting hard drives take the load off when making your data illegible to snoopers and thieves.
The new capabilities are designed to effectively limit the possibility that malicious software is loaded before the operating system. This kind of malware, known as a rootkit, can often bypass or even disable key security functionality and hide its own presence entirely.
Windows 8 also provides a means for security software to ensure that it is the first thing that gets loaded when the PC is powered on, in a further effort to stop malware from overriding your protection.
When it comes to authenticating users, Microsoft has added some functionality obviously designed for those touchscreen devices it is anticipating.
Picture or pin logins can be used once a user's password has been set, as a shortcut to logging in. While this feature may be convenient, research during beta testing has demonstrated some serious weaknesses that could allow an attacker to uncover the actual password of accounts using this feature, so discretion is advised!
There are several other features that I don't have the space to detail here, but it's great to see Microsoft continuing to take security seriously and allow specialist security providers to integrate more deeply with its system.
OPEN VERSUS CLOSED
Jason Kingsley is chairman of Tiga - the trade association representing the UK's video games industry. He reflects on the controversy caused by Microsoft's decision to launch its own curated app store from which it will take a cut of the sale price.
The power of touchscreen computers of all sorts is very impressive and means our creativity as games developers can be unleashed.
Is it right therefore that some hardware manufacturers offer shop windows that place limitations on the sort of game that they take?
Should Microsoft, for example, only offer products in its Windows that it considers are suitable?
In a situation without a monopoly I would say that this is for the market to decide. You can put your carefully crafted game through Microsoft's certification system and have it featured in its shop window, or choose not to take that route and release the game on the same platform in the wild.
If Microsoft owns the shop window there is an argument to be made for it deciding what to put in it after all. There are many players who want a curated service, where certain technical and editorial standards are enforced, other users will be just as happy with making their own minds up and taking a risk elsewhere.
But while the full Windows 8 system allows choice, the Windows RT version only lets new apps be installed from the store, meaning some games will fall foul of a ban on 18-rated titles. That decision worries some who see Microsoft turning away from its "open platform" roots.
What we do know as an industry is that things change very rapidly and that the market is a brutal and unforgiving place. Which approach is the right one for both creators and distributors will be defined simply by the market and people power.
EVOLVING THE INTERFACE
Dan Kraemer is co-founder of the Chicago-based design consultancy IA Collaborative. He says the look of the new Windows system marks a significant step forward in computer interfaces.
User interface (UI) is one of the most impactful manifestations of human centred design in our modern society. And while it's one of the most progressive spaces for design, I believe it will follow a historic aesthetic sequence.
We can think of Windows 8's approach not as a right versus wrong, but as evidence of the progression of a category.
Take a look at architectural styles over the ages. One hundred years ago, decorative styles like Victorian and Art Deco prevailed as architecture emerged as "art," much like early web design.
In the mid-century Modernists demonstrated "less is more" with nearly no ornamental elements and stark simplicity - think the Google search page prior to all those whimsical banners.
At the same time, understanding of architecture elements and new materials emerged. Now we have neo-modernism which embraces a less rigid, more emotive expression of modernist. We might think of Windows 8 as today's neo-modernist interface.
Microsoft's rejection of skeuomorphism - the idea that applications need to look like their real-world equivalents - distinguishes it from Apple's OS X whose calendar app features a leather-skinned interface with ripped paper to hint at earlier entries. Apple's design has been attacked by some as being "kitsch", but praised by others for humanising the interface.
Windows 8 clearly moves away from this, at least in part - it still uses icons, shapes and colours to identify states which relate to our "real" world.
As a designer, I am energised by the fact users are becoming sophisticated enough to handle both kinds of design. Each interface is a unique opportunity to engage and inspire users while progressing the discipline forward.
INTERESTING AGAIN
Kirk Schell is the vice president of Dell's consumer products division. To take advantage of Windows 8's touch interface his firm is releasing a laptop whose screen can swivel in its bezel to lie flat against its keyboard, among other innovative designs.
This is an exciting time as it makes people want to look at the different type of computers out there.
I see more innovation as companies act to take advantage of the Windows 8 environment, when in a purely price-driven market you would have seen less.
Windows 8 is a catalyst to invest more in differentiation. That's a good thing as it will get people out to see what is happening. There is new news.
A big box retailer in North America described it to me this way: When big tube-based TVs were the norm and we introduced flatscreen displays, the biggest driver wasn't that consumers had high definition material they wanted to play. It was that they saw all these slim TVs hanging on the wall, looked at their big box in the corner, and said: 'I am so behind the times I need to upgrade.'
We think that with the launch of computers that they want to touch and which offer other new technologies, that people will look at their old PC and think they at least need to go and look at what's new.
This is not just a tablet story.
I believe that all consumer-targeted computers will feature touchscreens in less than a decade. At the moment there are manufacturing capacity and cost issues, but the price difference to include the feature will come down to tens of dollars.
People like more ways to interact with their device and there will be more cool things to come.
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A woman has been left with "life-threatening" injuries after a collision in Oake, Somerset early on Thursday. | Avon & Somerset Police said the collision between the woman and a car happened at about 06:55 GMT in the Oake Green area of the village.
A police spokesman said: "The woman was treated at the scene and has been taken to hospital, her condition is believed to be life-threatening.
"We'd advise motorists seek an alternative route at this time."
The road was initially closed while emergency services carried out work at the scene, but reopened at noon.
Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]
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The funeral of Hollie Gazzard, the hairdresser fatally stabbed in a city centre hair salon, has taken place. | Twenty-year-old Ms Gazzard was attacked at Fringe Benefits and La Bella Beauty in Southgate Street, Gloucester, in February.
About 700 people attended a memorial service at Gloucester Cathedral before the private cremation.
Asher Maslin, 22, of Benhall Gardens, Cheltenham, has been charged with Miss Gazzard's murder.
A trial is likely to take place in October at Gloucester Crown Court.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is also investigating contact between Gloucestershire Police and Miss Gazzard before her death.
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Mrs May did not sprawl on the Royal throne to glare at their lordships. She merely glowered from its steps. The heralds might call it "the perch presumptive". But she might as well have done so: she is queen of all she surveys. The Copeland by-election has established the May hegemony. How long it lasts is another matter. | Mark MardellPresenter, The World This Weekend@BBCMarkMardellon Twitter
Her power is unchallenged. There is little serious opposition within her once fractious party and little outside it at the moment, at least not in England.
The Stoke result is far from good for Labour: it won only because the Conservative vote held up, and UKIP failed to increase its share significantly.
Copeland though, was the killer. When by-elections go wrong for governments the journalistic cliche is that it's "the final nail in their coffin". This time the nail is in the other foot.
Mrs May delights in facing what some critics have described as a "zombie" opposition. Jeremy Corbyn's many internal opponents believe they are lurching towards an apocalypse in 2020, their leader undead and unkillable. They may be wrong about the chance of renaissance but their doubts make it even less likely.
Meanwhile, like some doomsday machine which has completed its mission, UKIP seems to be counting down to its own destruction - it may not actually blow up but Paul Nuttall's by-election failure is now being eclipsed by new stories of internal squabbles.
While they were busy trying to pinch Labour's voters, they didn't notice Mrs May had nicked their clothes.
The Liberal Democrats are the natural repository for the unreconciled Remain voters. But they are not exactly radiating raw heat.
Tony Blair's big speech turned out to be less of a clarion call and more a virtuoso jazz solo, brilliant but gaining no new fans. The same could be said for John Major's big gig.
For now the May hegemony looks unassailable.
And remember, she's didn't get here by accident. It just looks that way. Mrs May positioned herself perfectly to be the heir apparent in the case of either Brexit result. Cameron's unexpectedly abrupt departure had huge, unexpected consequences.
We in the UK often overstate our own importance. But our prime minister is unique in the world at the moment. She did not summon or support the wave of populism which propelled her to power. But she has ridden it with skill.
She has firmly and loudly proclaimed three big things, so obvious now, that it seems like any Conservative prime minister would have said them after a Brexit vote. They wouldn't have, though.
Whatever their policy, PM Johnson or Gove would have wanted to sound conciliatory in victory towards their defeated opponents, inside and outside the party. There could have been mollification on migration while the hand of friendship would have been thrust towards Remainers. That in itself would have opened up a space for debate, which Mrs May has closed down.
She, indeed, exhibits such a convert's zeal for the verdict of the people that neither those who are delighted nor those who are nauseated, peer beyond her enthusiasm to perceive the tactics.
Those three big things?
First that Brexit will happen: no ifs, no buts. Second, that it was largely about immigration. Thirdly, critically, that it was also about something else.
She proclaims it was a howl of pain from those who are economically adrift in a society where there is growing inequality.
In the Spectator, James Forsyth notes correctly that she is attempting to plot a middle course, a third way, between the two clashing ideologies which have, in part, replaced left and right as the burning divisions of our time: nationalism and globalisation.
To square this circle will need her to display even more ingenuity than is so far on display. Indeed, if she can't reconcile contradictory facts she will have to make choices which will disappoint someone or other. That could break the hegemony.
Take Brexit itself.
The government White Paper on leaving the EU has been mocked for its vacuity. In fact, it is very revealing. It strikes a pose of very hard Brexit while hinting at the desirability of the opposite.
It declares controlling EU immigration is "complex", adding there may be "a phased process of implementation" after businesses have said what they want. I await the reply of farmers, caterers and minicab firms with interest.
Indeed David Davis and Amber Rudd agree migration will continue for a good while yet. That could be a focus for new opposition.
Then there are tariffs. Portions of the White Paper could have been ripped from Remain propaganda.
They give the example of Airbus, where the wings are built in Wales with parts crossing back and forth promiscuously between borders.
The government argues it needs "tariff-free trade in goods that is as frictionless as possible between the UK and the EU".
The British Chambers of Commerce says that if the UK can't get such a deal, Brexit should be put on hold. Others will argue for World Trade Organization rules or retaliatory trade barriers of hard Brexit.
If the sharp edges of this square can't be smoothed into soothing curves, then the hegemony could crack.
Then there's Mrs May's promise of a government which "works for everyone, not just the privileged few". Does she just mean a growing economy or is she really talking about a radical redistribution of wealth and power?
And if those despairing coastal towns, and abandoned swathes of our post-industrial kingdom still feel left behind in 2020, what then will they think of the establishment in power?
Hegemony never lasts. But it can last long enough.
While I love the old saying, "fine words butter no parsnips", plenty of political parsnips are positively slippery with rhetorical promises which render reality more palatable.
As Abraham Lincoln didn't say: "You may not be able to butter all of the parsnips all of the time, but you can probably make enough of them glisten appetisingly long enough to be swallowed at the next election."
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Two 500lb (226kg) devices thought to be World War II bombs have been destroyed in the New Forest.
| It was revealed that the objects, discovered at Latchmore Bottom near Frogham, were actually training devices used during the war.
A 500m (1640ft) exclusion zone was set up as the controlled explosion was carried out by EOD Explosive Ordnance Disposal at about 14:15 BST.
Hampshire Constabulary said air support was flying over the area.
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The first residents are moving in to homes in the east end of Glasgow built to accommodate athletes at last year's Commonwealth Games. | The Athletes' Village in Dalmarnock was home to about 7,000 competitors and officials during the Games last summer.
The 38.5 hectare site was reconfigured afterwards and now features 300 private homes, 400 homes for social rent and a new 120-bed care home for the elderly.
By the end of Friday, about 100 homes on the site will be occupied.
The remainder of the homes are expected to be filled by the end of the summer.
Of the socially rented homes, 200 will be for Thenue Housing Association, 102 for West of Scotland Housing Association and 98 for Glasgow Housing Association.
More than 250 of the 300 private homes have so far been sold.
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For decades some of the poorest people in the US have lived in subsidised housing developments often known as "projects". Many of these projects, however, are now being torn down and studies suggest only one in three residents find a home in the mixed-income developments built to replace them. | By Jasmine ColemanBBC News, Washington DC
Windows are boarded up, chunks of plaster crumble from the walls and a collection of soft toys and flowers signifies the spot where a young man was recently killed.
"Animals get better care and attention to housing conditions than this," says Phyllissa Bilal. "People can go to a Third World country and say they're shocked at the horrible conditions. But then they drive past people here every day who live in the same."
Built in 1943, Barry Farm lies along one of the main commuting routes into the US capital. It is just over the Anacostia River from Washington Navy Yard, the US Navy's headquarters, and less than two miles (3km) from Capitol Hill.
But while few would choose to bring up a family here, when Bilal and her husband were granted a home in 2011 she says it "meant everything". Their previous home had burned down several years earlier and a house on the Farms, as the estate is known, offered them - and their five, soon six, children - "a chance to get back on our feet".
She has been proud to call the housing project home. "It's a community, it's almost like an extension of your family," she says. But now it is due for demolition.
Neglected and plagued by crime, it is one of thousands of public housing projects across the US deemed to have failed, and slated to be replaced by mixed-income developments, of homes and shops.
But during the process of destruction and reconstruction, Bilal does not know where her family will go.
The construction of public housing became national policy in 1937 as part of President Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal - a series of social reforms introduced in response to the Great Depression. Ed Goetz, author of New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy, says many public housing projects built during this time were successful, well-built and well-managed.
Some remain popular today. Plans to redevelop the country's first federally funded housing project for African Americans - Rosewood Court in Austin, Texas - have prompted a campaign to protect it by securing recognition of its historical importance.
Public housing in the US
Sources: HUD, ONS, Scottish government, NISRA, PHADA
Although black and white people lived in separate buildings, the housing projects of the 1930s provided homes to working-class residents of all races.
But this changed after World War Two when new low-interest mortgages helped white working-class people buy homes in the suburbs. A 1949 law also made public housing available only to people on the lowest incomes. So in time the projects began to house only the poorest minority communities.
The US government had aimed to build one million homes in public housing projects by 1955, but by 1967 only 633,000 were in use. In an attempt to cut costs, many housing authorities also began skimping on materials and construction. From that point forward, the buildings tended to be neither well-made nor well maintained, says Goetz.
By the early 1950s high-rise projects were being built that would soon become symbols of the problem with public housing. One was Pruitt-Igoe in St Louis, advertised as a paradise of "bright new buildings with spacious grounds" when it opened in 1954, but already by the mid-1970s crime-ridden, half-deserted and barely fit for habitation.
Projects such as Pruitt-Igoe collapsed "badly and quickly", says Ed Goetz, leading popular consensus to view the whole public housing programme as a "spectacular failure".
Crime is one yardstick by which that failure has been measured. One study by the US Department of Justice found the number of violent offences committed every year between 1986 and 1989 in housing projects in Washington DC was almost double that in nearby neighbourhoods - 41 crimes per 1,000 residents, compared to 23. Another study, carried out in 1994, found that nearly 30% of residents living in one public housing project in Chicago said a bullet had been shot into their home in the previous 12 months.
Public housing officials came to see the problems associated with the projects as the "concentrated effects of poverty", says Goetz - problems that could be solved by creating mixed-income communities where public housing residents lived among wealthier neighbours.
"At least that was the prevailing theory," says Goetz. "Other things were involved, including the revival of the real estate markets in central city areas."
In 1992, housing officials began receiving government grants to tear down and replace the worst public housing complexes. Housing agencies had demolished or otherwise got rid of 285,000 homes by 2012 and replaced only about a sixth, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based research institute.
Another 42,000 units have been lost since then, government figures suggest, leaving the volume of public housing at a level last seen in the 1970s.
David Layfield, an affordable housing expert, says it is important to remember that many of the projects being demolished have been largely abandoned - with vacancy rates of up to 30% in some places - because they were so uninhabitable.
"The reality is that public housing is being improved drastically - being made more durable and more energy efficient," he says. "And in many cases the developers have diversified the income levels."
Amid stories of trees growing through the living rooms of crumbling properties and residents being attacked outside their homes, many residents of Barry Farm welcome a new start. However, some are determined to fight the development.
"The process of transformation looks good on paper but across the country it has not worked and it is not going to work here," says Phyllissa Bilal.
One of the main concerns is that current residents will not be able to return once the site is redeveloped.
"This isn't the perfect place but at the same time this is still my home," says Paulette Matthews, who has lived at Barry Farm since 1995. "When you take people out of these places where are they going to end up?"
Developers are required by law to help residents relocate during the demolition and construction process, and on paper they have a right to return to the redeveloped property - but on average, it has been estimated, only one in three do.
People often "fall out of the system", says Goetz. "Much too little is done to make sure original residents really benefit."
The housing authority in Washington DC says that all the public housing homes on Barry Farm will be replaced on a one-to-one basis and it has offered to help current residents move to alternative public housing projects, apply for government subsidies to pay for private rentals or try to buy their own home.
History of Barry Farm
But Paulette Matthews says local turf wars and the existence of gangs make moving between public housing projects dangerous.
Meanwhile Phyllissa Bilal says people are "fearful… in a constant state of trauma" because of the high levels of homelessness they see around them. It is not a fate they want to share.
By one estimate 3.5 million people in the US experience a period of homelessness in any given year. Another report has calculated that the US lacks 7.2 million affordable homes needed to house extremely low-income households. And even though hundreds of thousands of people are on waiting lists for public housing, the construction of additional publicly subsidised homes is seen as unlikely.
"There are very different perspectives in the US on how you help people who are in poverty," says David Layfield, who set up a website to help people find available spaces.
"There is a group of people who believe that you don't need to give a poor person anything, you just need to teach them how to work.
"We have a dysfunctional government in the US with two very strong policy divides… How do you get them to agree that a basic resource such as housing is necessary?"
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BBC One's Mrs Wilson - in which the actress Ruth Wilson plays her own grandmother - has shone an unforgiving light on the author, spy and bigamist Alexander Wilson. But not one living soul knows the whole truth about Alexander - my grandfather - except maybe inside MI5. | By Sam WilsonBBC News
When the many strands of Alexander's story began to emerge a decade or so ago we joked that it would have to be made into a film one day.
And we turned to my sister Ruth and said: "And you can play Granny!"
And she did.
In fact she went further, making our grandmother Alison the central character in the drama - which became a three-part series in the end, rather than a film.
It may not have been the obvious choice to focus on Granny, but the decision was fine by me because the gruelling poverty and psychological torture Alison endured as a result of Alexander's actions and lies deserved equal billing with his exploits.
At a preview screening last month, about 50 members of my extended family gathered to see the story brought to life.
At the end we were left stunned to silence, many in tears, at what felt like the culmination of our shared past.
But there is still more to discover.
Warning: Spoilers below
After he died in 1963, the fabrications Alexander - known as Alec - had built up during his 22-year "marriage" to Alison quickly collapsed.
He was still married to his first wife - there had never been a divorce - making Alison, as well as Alec, a bigamist.
The country manor he had promised they would inherit was a sham, along with his aristocratic lineage.
It would eventually emerge that he had two further families, with seven children in all.
His credentials as a cad and bounder seem beyond dispute. But they are disputed by his children - each one of whom remembers him as a devoted dad.
"He was very kind, very generous, very loving," recalled Mike Shannon, Alec's son from his second marriage.
But Mike was victim of the cruellest deception in the whole story.
He was told at the age of nine that his father had been killed in the war, when in fact he had moved across London to set up home with my grandmother. He only found out the truth six decades later.
What makes Alec's story so compelling is the maze of contradictions, where it is difficult to grasp what is truth and what is not, let alone what his motives were.
"His invention was extraordinary, and how do you pick out truth from untruth, after all this time?" Mike told me.
'Stunned, sick and cold'
We know some truths because of Alison's private memoir.
It tells how she met the charismatic older man, a best-selling spy author, while working for MI6 in London in 1940, where he translated and she transcribed bugged telephone calls from London embassies.
She fell deeply in love, got pregnant, and they married.
But their life quickly spiralled into extreme poverty. He was first sacked, then imprisoned twice, and declared bankrupt.
"Stunned, sick and cold with terror", she was left desperate for somewhere to live with two lice-ridden young boys.
Even after his death, she was drawn into the deception, keeping her sons in the dark for decades about their father's other family.
The other side of Alec's story has been pieced together by Prof Tim Crook, a journalist and academic who dug and scoured and prodded, tracking down the children from each of his four bigamous marriages, thereby helping to unite an extended family that was spread between Southampton and Edinburgh.
In Mrs Wilson, the battle for the truth is personified by Alec's two spy handlers - Coleman, the woman who ran the MI6 office in London, and Shahbaz Karim from Lahore - an invented character, since there are few records from his time in India in the 1920s.
Viewers are left trying to decipher how much of his story was devised by the secret services, just as we in the family are now.
According to Coleman's version, Alec was the author of his own downfall. His fall from grace was the rightful punishment due to a pathological pretender.
Karim, however, puts Alec's side of the story in Mrs Wilson.
His sacking and subsequent ostracisation by MI6, his convictions for wearing false uniform and embezzlement, were all part of the cover that would allow him to get close to fascists in prison and other intelligence targets.
This is what Alec told my grandmother in as many words.
This might seem far-fetched. And why would we believe a word Alec said when deception came so easily to him?
But we should remember that there are not just two possibilities - the hapless scapegoat, or the deluded fantasist - there is a whole host of possibilities in between.
'Most secret' letter
And Prof Crook has unearthed several anomalies which are hard to explain, and may lend credence to Alec's version.
Alec's dismissal from MI6 was apparently because he'd staged a fake burglary at his own flat. We know this because "C" himself (the chief of MI6) said so in a 1943 letter marked "most secret", which was released in 2013 following Prof Crook's first biography of Alexander Wilson.
But there are no records of any inquiry or prosecution for this fraud, and Alison makes no mention of it in her memoir.
While Alexander Wilson's output as an author is undisputed - he had more than 20 books published in the 1920s and 30s - his records at his main publisher have been lost.
Nor is there any trace of his membership of the Author's Club in Whitehall.
Could this be a "sanitisation" operation?
The biggest unanswered questions surround the claim that Alec had faked his translations at MI6, concocting reports implying the Egyptian ambassador was running a spy ring apparently to benefit Nazi Germany.
The spy ring was investigated by MI5, which eventually concluded (after Alec's sacking) that it did not exist and Alec's translations were fabricated.
But historical context suggests his reports may have been credible.
There is now plenty of evidence that some factions in Egypt were actively helping Nazi Germany during the El-Alamein campaign, on the promise of real Egyptian independence if Britain was defeated.
And Egypt's ambassador in London, Nachat Pasha, was a known nationalist activist who plotted to overthrow the pro-British government in Cairo.
MI5 files
What nobody disputes is that Alec was a fervent patriot.
He wrote many letters pleading to be allowed to serve in World War Two despite his injuries from the previous war.
Perhaps the spy writer had detected espionage in the Egyptian conversations, and was only embellishing his translations to raise the alarm?
In the 1943 letters between C and other spymasters they agreed that Alec should never be allowed to work in an official capacity again. It is quite possible that they also warned publishers to steer clear of him.
His prolific writing career ground to a halt. That's why Alison - and her sons Nigel (my father) and Gordon - spent years destitute.
To make such a sweeping order the MI5 evidence against Alec must have been strong - but it is still being withheld.
It was not included in the partial release of files in 2013 for reasons of national security, leaving the family unable to form a rounded view.
Personally, I'm dubious that the file would provide the exoneration that many of the Wilsons would welcome. But we'd still like the full picture.
"As things stand our father has been left in limbo as unreliable and a public danger," my father says.
"I think he was better than that, but if the files are released and prove otherwise, so be it.
"That would be a better conclusion than the current stench of concealment."
My dad is 74. Dennis, Alec's oldest surviving son, is 97. And Mike, the son from his second "marriage" who was told his father was killed in World War Two, died in 2010.
Prof Crook has appealed again for the report to be released, 75 years on.
As my dad says: "All we want is the truth."
Mrs Wilson is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer for the next 29 days (from date of publication)
Professor Tim Crook's biography of Alexander Wilson, The Secret Lives of a Secret Agent (Second Edition), is available via Kultura Press
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The States of Guernsey has decided to delay debate until February on the compulsory purchase of land to allow the airport runway project to go ahead. | The majority of members voted to defer the debate to allow more time for all the information to be considered.
The £81m project involves work on the runway, safety area, taxiway, airfield lighting and other operational systems.
The Public Services Department suggested delaying its own motion so another report could be prepared.
Minister Bernard Flouquet said: "If members have concerns that they do not have enough information there is a risk that they will feel obliged to vote against it.
"This would put back the whole project by many, many months - something we can ill afford given the age of the existing runway and the critical importance of our airport."
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Much has rightly been written of the boy soldiers who were able to lie their way into serving and dying on the Western Front. But what about the schoolboy sailors deliberately sent to war, writes Andrew Thomson. | The 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings - one of the costliest phases of World War One - will be commemorated next month. It's estimated that both sides lost 130,000 dead as the Allies unsuccessfully battled the Ottoman army for control of the Dardanelles strait.
Among the dead were two 15-year-old boys from Scotland - best friends Torquil MacLeod and Ronnie Faed, who served aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Goliath.
Both Torquil and Ronnie came from privileged backgrounds.
Born on 11 September 1899, Torquil was the second son of Roderick and Alice MacLeod of Cadboll. The childhood home he shared with his two brothers and sister was Invergordon Castle, a now demolished stately home.
Ronnie Faed was born on 29 May 1899, the son of the Scottish artist James Faed Jr. Ronnie's family were constantly on the move because of his father's work commitments but they considered Galloway to be their home.
Like most boys of their social class Torquil and Ronnie were sent off to preparatory boarding schools. They probably first met at the age of 12 when they both enrolled at the Royal Naval College at Osbourne on the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1912.
The two cadets completed two years of officer training there before moving on to the college's senior campus at Dartmouth.
Discipline was strict for the trainee officers. There was constant military drill and they had compulsory "cold plunge" washes at 6am every day.
They were also given intensive lessons on engineering and other practical skills that would be of use for life aboard a Royal Navy ship.
However, Torquil and Ronnie, along with the rest of their class-mates, also got plenty of opportunity to enjoy sports and were particularly encouraged to become strong swimmers.
Their routine was turned upside down on 1 August 1914 when 434 cadets of the Dartmouth cadets aged between 14 and 16 were ordered to mobilise and join the Royal Navy's reserve fleet.
One of the cadets Wolston Weld-Forester, who survived the war, later wrote that on hearing the news they all rushed towards the main college building, joyous at the thought of the adventures that lay ahead.
"Already an excited crowd was surging through the grounds - some with mouths still full from the canteen, others clutching cricket pads and bats and yet others but half- dressed, with hair still dripping from the swimming baths..."
But while mobilisation was a source of joy for the cadets it undoubtedly caused anxiety among their parents and for some their worst fears were soon realised.
By mid-November at least 23 of the youngsters had been killed in action, mostly at the hands of German submariners.
The first Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill was forced to defend the decision to send the boys to sea in the House of Commons. He explained to MPs: "It was felt that young officers of their age would be of great use on board His Majesty's ships, and that they would learn incomparably more of their profession in war than any educational establishment on shore could teach them."
More on World War One
Torquil, then 14, and Ronnie, 15, were assigned to HMS Goliath, a pre-dreadnought battleship that was brought out of retirement at the start of the war.
Although obsolete compared with more modern vessels, "Golly" - as she was known to her crew - could still pack a considerable punch with her four 12-inch guns.
The two boys were made midshipmen, the most junior rank for officers, who were commonly referred to as "snotties". They were to get their first taste of action not in the North Sea but in the distant waters of the Indian Ocean where HMS Goliath was sent to take part in operations against enemy warships operating out of the German East African colony in modern day Tanzania.
However, at the end of 1914 HMS Goliath had to go for a lengthy refit at the Simon's Town naval base near Cape Town in South Africa.
While there Ronnie wrote one of many letters home to his parents, telling them that he and his best friend Torquil had both enjoyed going to what he described as a few "bun worry" tea parties with local young ladies.
But in March 1915 they were ordered to head to the Aegean for the start of the fateful Dardanelles campaign. HMS Goliath's role in the operation was to help cover the landing of Allied troops on the peninsula by bombarding Ottoman positions.
Battle for Gallipoli: February 1915-January 1916
Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Gallipoli
Resistance was fierce and the young boys would have seen the horrors of this campaign up close as they helped transfer wounded men, often nursing terrible injuries, off the beach and back to hospital ships.
In his final letter home just days before his death, Ronnie wrote: "I am as well and happy as a fiddle - there is absolutely nothing to be anxious about - just you think of afterwards."
The Ottoman high command had decided that action had to be taken to stop Royal Navy battleships from raining down destruction upon their forces.
In foggy conditions and under cover of darkness on the night of 12-13 May 1915, the Turkish torpedo boat Muavenet-i Milliye managed to sneak through the narrows and opened fire, hitting HMS Goliath with three torpedoes.
Ronnie and Torquil's old classmate 15-year-old Wolston Weld-Forester was woken up by the explosions and later described the following moments in his memoir From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles.
"Inside the ship everything which was not secured was sliding about and bringing up against the bulkheads with a series of crashes. Crockery was smashing - boats falling out of their crutches - broken funnel guys swinging against the funnel casings.
Wolston described the ship heeling over to about 20 degrees, before holding steady for a few seconds.
"In the momentary lull the voice of one of our officers rang out steady and clear as at 'divisions' : 'Keep calm, men. Be British!'"
The ship then started to heel rapidly again. Wolston jumped overboard.
"Just before I struck the water my face hit the side of the ship. It was a horrid feeling sliding on my face down the slimy side, and a second later I splashed in with tremendous force, having dived about 30ft.
"Just as I was rising to the surface again a heavy body came down on top of me. I fought clear and rose rather breathless and bruised. I swam about 50 yards away to get clear of the suction when the ship went down. Then, turning round and treading water I watched her last moments."
There were just three-and-a-half minutes between the torpedoes striking and Goliath sinking.
Wolston was one of the lucky ones. He was in the sea for a considerable time before rescuers found him, just as he was beginning to lose consciousness through cold and exhaustion.
There were 570 others who were not so fortunate.
They included Torquil and Ronnie. Torquil was aged 15 and eight months while Ronnie was just a few weeks away from his 16th birthday.
Sub-lieutenant Philip van der Byl wrote this letter to Ronnie's parents: "I am sure it will be some comfort to you to hear how much we all loved your son in the Goliath, and how much we miss him. He was the life and soul of the gunroom, and always most cheerful and optimistic. His best friend was (Torquil) Macleod, who also was drowned.
"They always used to go ashore together and buy curios for you. He really was a charming boy, loved by all who knew him. On the night we were sunk he was sleeping outside my cabin, and I saw him when I turned out. He had got his safety waistcoat on, and was going quietly up the ladder on to quarter-deck. He seemed as cheerful as usual, and perfectly cool.
"When I got on to deck a few seconds later he was just going-over the port side with two other 'snotties.' That was the last I saw of him, and I shall never forget his cheery little face absolutely as full of confidence and calm assurance as it could be. He was picked up unconscious by one of the Euryaliis boats, and died on board, and was buried at sea early the same morning. Poor boy! I hoped and prayed he might have been saved, and we were all miserable when we heard he had gone... It is always the good who die young."
Dr Jane Harrold, an archivist at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, has researched the stories of these youngest of British military personnel who went to war.
"They were incredibly enthusiastic. This was going to be a great adventure. It was going to be over fairly quickly as most people thought."
Perhaps the most surprising thing for a modern audience is the apparent lack of contemporary concern at teenagers being sent to war.
"There seems to have been surprisingly little opposition and a great deal of acceptance, which is surprising considering that if you had wanted to fight in the trenches you would have had to have lied about your age if you were 15 and convince the recruiter that you were 18.
"The public doesn't appear to have rallied very much against it. Not being fully commissioned officers, the parents of these 15-year-olds would still be paying fees for the training they were receiving while they were out at sea and putting their lives at risk. The only concession being that if your son died after say six months you'd get half of your fees rebated."
But this aspect of the war remains relatively unknown even now.
"I am almost as surprised about the lack of interest now as the lack of concern 100 years ago. It seems inexplicable to me that so little is known about this. This was officially sanctioning schoolboys to go into the thick of war at a time where you weren't allowing that to happen when it came to land warfare."
The situation of the young cadets was particularly precarious as they were used to crew older Royal Navy vessels.
"There was pressure in terms of manpower. But knowing that these boys were not fully trained they weren't going to take a risk by sending them to the more modern, more expensive and more valuable ships in the fleet. Naturally they got sent to not only the oldest and least efficient but perhaps also the most exposed and most vulnerable at the same time. So it was a double whammy in terms of the risk these boys were running."
Ronnie's great nephew, Stuart Faed, is planning to travel out to Gallipoli for the 100th anniversary of the sinking of HMS Goliath.
"I feel I have to go. My grandfather always talked about his brother and I think I am doing it for him. I suspect it will be very emotive.
"I have a daughter who is 15, which is the same age as young Ronnie was when he died on board that ship. So I think that has probably brought it home to me just what a tender age he was when he lost his life for his country."
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The Scottish government is to start work towards a second independence referendum in the wake of the UK voting to leave the EU, with the SNP launching a nationwide "listening exercise" to gauge views. Political reporter Philip Sim looks at the questions the party will seek to answer before taking Scotland back to the polls. | By Philip SimBBC Scotland News
A second Scottish independence referendum is "on the table"; in fact Nicola Sturgeon says it's "highly likely". Her ministers have been set to work to draw up legislation to make this "option" a "deliverable" one.
Note, for a start, that the language is all still hypothetical. So is it really going to happen? Before we find out the answer to that question, a whole host of others need to be addressed.
The SNP leader is, obviously, dedicated to Scottish independence. But she has been hesitant to call for a second vote on the matter straight away, despite some members (and MPs) straining at the leash.
This is because Ms Sturgeon doesn't just want to hold a second indyref - she wants to win one. The next poll will be a zero-sum game; lose, and it really is over for a generation.
The first minister won't fire the starting gun on the race until she's absolutely sure she can win. And amidst the shockwaves of the UK's vote to leave the EU, how sure can a politician be about anything at the moment?
Ms Sturgeon will be hoping that her 120,000 party members can bring back some answers about the mood of the nation from the doorsteps.
Here are a selection of the other questions the first minister will be pondering before she starts down the road to indyref2.
Legality
Perhaps the biggest hurdle first - can Scotland even hold a referendum which would bring about independence?
Winning the approval of Holyrood would not be the issue. The SNP may have lost their majority in May, but the cohort of pro-indy Greens mean there would be no issue gathering the support of enough MSPs - despite Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems all lining up in opposition.
The problem is, the power to call a referendum is reserved to Westminster. The 2014 plebiscite was only held with the blessing of David Cameron; would Theresa May sign off on another constitutional wrangle?
She initially made Scotland a high priority, visiting Ms Sturgeon in Edinburgh shortly after taking office, and has said she is "willing to listen to options". However, she warned that some of those mooted may be "impracticable".
With a Brexit to negotiate while settling in at Number 10, it might seem unlikely that Ms May would want to add a further complication to her crowded plate. But blocking a referendum would look distinctly undemocratic - and even a Yes vote in an unauthorised referendum would make life uncomfortable for the new PM.
Timing
If there is to be a second independence referendum, when could or should it be held?
Ms Sturgeon had hoped to have more time on her hands to build the case for independence anew. She wanted time to draw up a plan to win over No voters; on that front, Brexit might create an opportunity, but it also presents challenges.
Once Westminster sets the wheels of leaving the EU in motion, the clock is ticking on a two-year window. Former first minister Alex Salmond has suggested that Scotland would need to win its independence before the Brexit negotiations are complete, so that Scotland could effectively just stay put in the EU while the UK leaves.
Beyond the practical issues of setting up a referendum, when would the best time for the vote be? There are council elections scheduled for 2017 already, and it's still not entirely inconceivable that there could end up being a UK general election ahead of schedule too.
Scottish voters have spent a relatively large amount of time in polling stations of late - they've had five trips there in the span of just over two years.
The fatigue not just of the electorate but of the party activists who go out knocking on doors to "get out the vote" has been cited as a possible reason for referendum turnout shrinking from 85% in 2014 to 67% in 2016. Holding yet another vote too soon could be a risk.
Alex Neil, a member of Ms Sturgeon's cabinet up until May, has warned against being "stampeded" into holding a "premature and unnecessarily risky" referendum.
He says the SNP must wait until there has been a "decisive and evident shift in support for independence over a sustained period of time".
The electorate
Social media is already awash with anecdotes about avowed No voters casting off their unionist roots and pledging themselves for Yes.
But as the frantic tangle of polls in advance of the EU referendum showed, gauging what the electorate really think on any issue is increasingly difficult.
And in Scotland, the political picture is like an MC Escher painting. There are Remain vs Leave allegiances, reflected through the original indyref Yes vs No prism, and all of that on top of party loyalties.
There are endless layers of nuance; for example, what of SNP members who voted Leave out of concern for trade deals like TTIP? Will they now abandon their Eurosceptic leanings for the overarching goal of independence? (Probably, yes).
The same could be said for all Leave voters - there were a million of them, after all, and they need to be considered (and indeed represented) too. A million votes is not to be sniffed at, and could lock off a significant proportion of the electorate if the contest is characterised as one about EU membership.
As SNP deputy leadership candidate Angus Robertson has pointed out, winning over No voters will be the key task going forward.
The collapse in the price of oil, reflected in the GERS figures released in August, may have served to entrench some who voted No primarily to protect their bank balance. Even former SNP aides have gone so far as to say that the 2014 case for independence is "dead".
And, again on turnout, what about voters who don't turn up to vote at all? When it came down to it, only 43,000 more people voted Remain in the EU referendum than voted Yes in 2014.
Voter engagement appears to be shrinking; would the people come back the ballot box for indyref2?
Practical issues
Ms Sturgeon has a puzzle to solve over currency; it was an issue in 2014, and it's another of those problems she'd hoped to have more time to mull over.
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a member of both Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon's economic advisory teams, has conceded that the proposal to share the pound with the UK "may have been a mistake". Mr Salmond similarly says the Yes side were "gazumped" on the matter.
The first minister has has insisted that "the pound is Scotland's currency", but Mr Robertson has cautiously welcomed the idea of discussing a "Scottish pound", while fellow MP Joanna Cherry has suggested that Scotland might not want to be tied to the pound if it sinks post-Brexit.
There could be an upside to this; Mr Stiglitz reckons a floating Scottish currency could boost the economy and potentially smooth Scotland's entry to the EU, by cutting its deficit - which is currently far higher than that required of new members.
But would the EU let Scotland "join" (or Remain) without taking the Euro as its currency, another common rule for new members? On the flip side of the coin, would the UK allow independent Scotland to keep the pound?
Furthermore, what of borders? This was a simpler matter in 2014, but would Brexit Britain want an open land border to an EU member state? Ms May has pledged that there will not be one in Northern Ireland, but she might well strike a less conciliatory note in the heat of a referendum battle.
Would Scots vote to leave the UK if it meant embracing a new currency and putting up passport checkpoints at Gretna?
And more fundamentally, would an independent Scotland even be allowed to stay in the EU? Some influential member states have already voiced opposition the idea - including France and significantly Spain, which would be loathe to see Catalonia follow a similar path.
This is unprecedented territory, so it's hard to know what would be allowed, or who might have a veto - hence Ms Sturgeon's talks with EU leaders.
The wider picture
Despite the impression that Scotland and England are becoming two rather different places, what happens at Westminster is still going to have an enormous impact on Ms Sturgeon's decision-making.
First and foremost, what is the Brexit deal going to look like?
Beyond Theresa May's circular mantra of "Brexit means Brexit", we don't really know. We're yet to find out what the UK will look for at the negotiating table, far less what the likely settlement will be.
This again is both bad and good for Ms Sturgeon - she can (and has) point out that the UK that Scotland voted to remain in in 2014 will be fundamentally changed. But at the same time, she can't really know what she's campaigning to leave until it is clearer what the post-Brexit UK is going to look like.
Beyond these shores, what does Brexit mean for the European Union?
The UK is far from the only country unhappy with the role of Brussels. Indeed, it's been suggested that the EU's leaders could be harsh in their negotiations with Britain primarily to discourage other states from eyeing exits of their own.
Before you even consider the economic impact, other European leaders will surely be eyeing up special concessions in the vein of David Cameron's (failed) deal.
Who can say for sure what the EU will look like in a few years' time? In effect, can Ms Sturgeon even be sure what Scotland would be leaving the UK to remain part of?
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Thousands of fantasy fans have descended on Liverpool for the city's Comic Con dressed as their favourite characters. | The weekend-long event celebrates films, gaming, comics, anime and TV.
Celebrities attending the show at the Exhibition Centre include Flash Gordon's Sam J. Jones.
David Soul, Paul Michael Glaser and Antonio Fargas from Starsky and Hutch are also there with their famous car - the bright red Ford Gran Torino.
Chris Barrie and Danny John-Jules from Red Dwarf and Dr Who's Peter Davidson are also making guest appearances.
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Action has been taken to protect the environment following a river pollution incident at Wrexham, according to Natural Resources Wales (NRW). | It said officials worked through the night to prevent any impact on the River Gwenfro near Kingsmill.
NRW has called on firms that store chemicals to ensure they have the right permits to avoid possible action.
It said knowing which chemicals are stored where means it can ensure safe storage to prevent pollution incidents.
All such firms in the River Dee Water Protection Zone - which stretches between Gwynedd and Wrexham - are required by law to obtain consent from NRW.
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The rolling transport strikes that crippled Paris through much of December and January have stopped, as empty pay packets post-Christmas took their toll. Instead there has been a change of tactic, with the more radical unions now planning sporadic days of action. | By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris
President Emmanuel Macron's bid to radically overhaul the post-war pension system reaches the National Assembly on Monday, ahead of a long period of debate.
The moment is being marked by a strike on the Paris metro and further protests on Thursday.
For the government, the pressure from the street has clearly diminished, even though the protests still draw tens of thousands.
But the bigger difficulty is with the broader public - polls continue to show a majority in favour of the strikes, and rejecting the government's handling of the reform.
The pensions issue has also served as a rallying-cry for all those with other grievances against President Macron.
How Macron changed his plans
The proposed law would radically overhaul the country's post-war pension system, merging the 42 existing private and public sector regimes into one, universal points-based system. Early retirement privileges enjoyed by some workers would come to an end.
President Macron started off with one kind of reform, then as the protests grew he tried to convert it into another.
The initial proposal, as sold to the public, was to create a fairer system by making everyone put into - and get out of - the same pension pot under the same rules. It was a "systemic" reform, to use the parlance.
But somewhere en route it also became a "parametric" reform. In other words the government decided that now was also the moment to shuffle the numbers around in order to ensure the system's long-term financial survival.
Somewhere in the change, the government decided it had to be written in that people were going to have to work for longer, retiring later in life.
This may have been eminently sensible, but it was not what the government had advertised. And the unions - even the "moderate" ones - got cross.
The number of French people who actually understand the pensions reform can probably be counted in fingers and toes.
What on earth, for example, is the difference between an age de pivot (age of pivot) and an age d'équilibre (age of balance)?
They both have something to do with the year you first claim your pension, and whether or not you get penalised or rewarded.
The government says it backed down in response to the protests, abandoning the pivot age in favour of the latter.
And yet no-one in France can figure out what that implies.
Meanwhile, the government has set up a working group to report on ways of balancing out the current €14bn (£11.5bn; $15bn) pensions deficit.
So what does any of it mean for France's workforce?
Who are the winners and losers?
Most public sector employees receive a lot of their pay in the form of bonuses.
But teachers just get it straight. In the new universal pension system that's not good, because for the first time bonuses will be used in the calculation of who gets what.
So teachers fear they will lose out. The government says it will boost teachers' salaries to compensate.
But will it? And by how much?
Farmers, mothers and the low-paid are all said to be future beneficiaries of the new system.
Metro and train drivers will suffer, because they see the end of their special status.
But some other special statuses will survive, like for the army and police. Lawyers will be allowed to keep their special caisse (fund) with its massive surplus - for a while.
What happens now?
The National Assembly will now prepare to take up the baton on this mother of all reforms.
There are technically two laws going before parliament.
One is an ordinary law, and one is an "organic" law. The far-left opposition have tabled 20,000 amendments in committee; the State Council has ruled that in several aspects the government's intention to resort to decrees to implement the reform needs clarification.
Is it any wonder that the pension reforms have triggered the longest opposition movement since President Macron came to power?
The key point is not that people necessarily dislike the idea of a universal points-based system.
After all, as the president says, its much-vaunted prime characteristic - and what distinguishes it from the dreaded Anglo-Saxon systems - remains intact.
It is and will be a single "share-out" system in which workers pay in and pensioners take out. There are no scary pension funds.
No, the key point about the reform is that most people simply find it impossible to make head or tail of.
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in Nanjing, China for a meeting of G20. The aim is to discuss global monetary policy reform, but one expert tells us that the controversial topic of the Chinese currency will likely creep onto the agenda. | Viewpoint by Tommy Xie Economist, OCBC Bank
Nicolas Sarkozy has been criticising Chinese currency policy for the past few years.
His concern is not unfounded as the yuan has depreciated 5.2% against the euro since the beginning of this year, even though it gained 0.5% against the US dollar during the same period.
China's trading partners, including France, say the country has an export advantage because of a cheap currency.
Not bowing
However, the outcome of the meeting, at least as far as the yuan is concerned, is likely to be inconclusive.
China will reiterate its stance to keep the yuan appreciation at its own pace.
In fact, China's central bank has recently said that it wants to keep the currency stable at a reasonable level.
This is also confirmed by the fact that a one-time revaluation has been excluded from China's policy toolkit.
But the other thing that might prevent officials from letting the yuan appreciate faster is the Chinese habit of not bowing to international pressure.
Its key trading partners, including the US, have been turning up that pressure in recent months.
So a material impact from this round of G20 meeting on China's currency policy is not expected.
Pay-off
But global leaders' patience on yuan appreciation may bear fruit in the long run.
It is in China's interest to allow its currency to appreciate on a gradual basis.
Most analysts agree a rising yuan will play a role in curbing China's high inflation.
A gradually appreciating yuan will also help China build its nascent offshore yuan market.
It will give investors and exporters the incentive to accumulate the currency.
We expect the US dollar to trend down against the yuan to 6.3500 this year from current 6.5600 level and decline further in 2011 by an annualised 3-5%.
Increasing influence
With the rising influence of the Chinese economy, some researchers say the yuan is a candidate for a new global reserve currency.
Seeing as the yuan is not a fully convertible currency, this may still take at least five years.
However, the yuan is already emerging as a trade settlement currency in North Asia and South East Asia.
Total trade settled in yuan in 2010 surged to 506.3bn yuan, about 2.5% of China's total trade in 2010, from almost zero in 2009.
The yuan will play a more important role in global trade settlement in the next few years.
That, along with the development of the offshore yuan market, will likely lead to the yuan becoming a new global reserve currency at some stage.
Tommy Xie works as an economist in Singapore for OCBC Bank. He focuses on Treasury Research & Strategy. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Links to external sites are for information only and do not constitute endorsement. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.
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Rather to its own surprise, Parliament is back in action... | Mark D'ArcyParliamentary correspondent
But having been summoned back to scrutinise Brexit, there's not much Brexiting to scrutinise and MPs and peers will instead face a series of legislative chores, with only one major piece of legislation, the Domestic Abuse Bill, in play.
There's a certain element of "pick up sticks and lay them straight" about the agenda in both houses, but keep an eye out for unscheduled business - urgent questions will certainly drop into the agenda, and later in the week it is possible there might be some further attempt by backbench Remainers to seize control of Commons business.
Such manoeuvres seem unlikely while the Conservative conference is in play - it would look like a dirty trick to try and push something through while many ministers and Conservative MPs were hours away in Manchester, and it might invite retaliation against future opposition party conferences later.
At the moment an attempt to no-confidence the government looks unlikely, on the argument that it would get in the way of securing a further Brexit postponement, but there could be some effort to censure the PM or demand key documents from the failed prorogation, or some move to head off an attempt to get round the Benn-Burt legislation which would otherwise force the PM to seek a postponement of Brexit.
This is all very speculative, but all I can really point to is the sight of conspiratorial little huddles all around Parliament, and the enigmatic smiles that greet any attempt to find out what the different factions are up to.
Elsewhere, it will be a pretty quiet week on the Committee Corridor. Since the Commons was not expected to be sitting, no meetings were arranged and the lead time for organising witnesses to come in has meant that few committee hearings could be arranged.
The exception is the ever-industrious Public Accounts Committee, which maintains its Stakhanovite reputation with two important-looking sessions, first on special educational needs and then on the supply of medicines after Brexit.
The other committee event to look out for is the hoped-for appearance by the prime minister before the Liaison Committee.
This is the super-committee of all the select committee chairs, which questions the PM at least twice every parliamentary session. Boris Johnson was due to make his debut appearance a couple of weeks ago, but it was forestalled by prorogation that never was.
The session, if it happens (and as I write there is no confirmation of any new date) will doubtless be dominated by Brexit, but there is one amusing sub-plot; what if the PM's chief adviser, Dominic Cummings turns up in his entourage?
Mr Cummings, remember, has been held in contempt of Parliament for his refusal to appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is probing the allegations about the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum.
There's a strong view that it would be completely wrong for him to attend, while his contempt remains unpurged. So if he does turn up he would be ordered out - which could provide some interesting theatrics.
I imagine murmured warnings via the usual back-channels will prevent such a scene, but at the moment there seems to be a bit of a taste for drama.
Monday 30 September
In the Commons (14:30) MPs will deal with any urgent questions or ministerial statements before moving on to a series of Northern Ireland-related debates.
There is no departmental question time, because there has not been sufficient notice to put down questions - but there will have been by Tuesday, so the normal question times will then resume.
The Northern Ireland debates, required under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act, cover historical institutional abuse, victims' payment, human trafficking and gambling.
On the Committee Corridor, Public Accounts (16:00) takes evidence on the support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, based on this report from the financial watchdog, the National Audit Office.
The report concluded that while many pupils with SEND were receiving excellent support, many others were not - with serious consequences for their long-term prospects.
In the Lords (14:30) questions to ministers include the former chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Labour's Lord Harris of Haringey, asking when the additional 20,000 police officers promised by the prime minister will be deployed on duty.
The day's legislative business starts with the second reading debate for the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Bill - this would implement the government's commitment to alter the length of time between revaluations of rateable values for business rates, bringing the next revaluation forward a year, to 2021, in England and Wales.
It would also move the business rates revaluation cycle in England, from the present five-year cycle to a three-year cycle.
Peers will then be asked to approve statutory instruments on Human Medicines and Medical Devices and Insolvency Regulations.
Tuesday 1 October
Ministerial question times resume in the Commons (11:30) with Chancellor Sajid Javid at the despatch box.
The main listed business is a humdrum series of Brexit SIs, on common organisation of the markets in agricultural products, import and export licences and pesticides. So there will be plenty of scope for urgent questions and ministerial statements - although ministers might prefer to be making any big announcements at the Conservative conference in Manchester.
Debates also resume in Westminster Hall, with Conservative ex-minister Sir Christopher Chope continuing his long running campaign on the rights of people living in mobile homes (09:30), Bob Seeley leading a debate on improving healthcare on the Isle of Wight (11:00) and the former Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable discusses social care funding (14:30).
Other debates include Labour's Liz Kendall on child poverty in Leicester (16:00) and whipless ex-minister Margot James on adult learning and vocational skills training in Dudley (16:30).
In the Lords (14:30) Big Issue founder and crossbench peer Lord Bird has a question about taking into account the interests of future generations at every level of government policy-making
And then peers settle down to debate another mixed bag of orders and regulations.
Wednesday 2 October
Commons business opens (11:30) with international development questions, followed by prime minister's question time. This will probably not have Mr Johnson in the starring role, because he's expected to be addressing the Conservative Party conference.
The assumption is that Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, who is First Secretary of State, will deputise.
Next, Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards will present a Ten Minute Rule Bill to set up an advisory body on the share-out of government money across the UK.
The day's legislation is the biggest single thing on the week's parliamentary agenda; the second reading debate for the Domestic Abuse Bill - which was the major casualty of the abortive prorogation of Parliament. It has now sprung back to life and can begin its legislative journey.
The adjournment debate, led by Conservative MP Glyn Davies, is on the Welsh language.
In Westminster Hall, subjects for debate include the role of community pharmacies (09:30); proposed changes to free movement of EU nationals (11:00); trophy hunting imports (14:30); progress on leasehold and commonhold reform (16:00) and performance of child maintenance service in recovering payments from absent parents (16:30).
The Treasury Committee has an evidence session on the economic opportunities from decarbonisation and green finance (14:30.
The Public Accounts Committee (also 14:30) quizzes the top civil servant at the Department of Health and Social Care, Sir Chris Wormald, ands a supporting cast of senior officials about the availability of medicines and other medical supplies after Brexit, based on this report from the National Audit Office
In the Lords (15:00) questions to ministers include Lord Young of Cookham (the former transport secretary and later Leader of the Commons, Sir George Young) asking about the procedures followed in the dismissal of Sonia Khan as a special adviser - she was the media adviser to the chancellor, who was sacked and escorted out of Downing Street by an armed police officer. It was an incident that raised eyebrows in Whitehall.
Then Brexit minister Lord Callanan bats for the government in the overwhelmingly Remainer upper house, in a general debate on the UK's withdrawal from the EU.
Thursday 3 October
MPs begin (09:30) with digital, culture, media and sport questions - a despatch box debut in her new role for Nicky Morgan, followed by a mini-question time, but probably quite an entertaining one, for Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, fresh from his combative statement to MPs on the prorogation issue.
Tow general debates follow; first on a motion from the Lib Dem Vera Hobhouse on the rise of mental illness among women; then on the spending of the Ministry of Justice, led by the chair of the Justice Committee, Conservative Bob Neill.
In Westminster Hall (13:30) the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, leads a debate on sanctions policy, following a report from his committee describing the current policy as "fragmented and incoherent."
In the Lords (11:00) the normal half hour of questions to ministers is followed by debates on subjects raised by backbench peers from the crossbenches.
The first is from former Chief Inspector of Prisons Lord Ramsbotham on reforming the management and treatment of offenders in prison and the community.
Then former Bishop of Oxford Lord Harries of Pentregarth has a debate on ensuring that human rights are respected in any future trade deals with other countries.
Neither House is expected to sit on Friday 4 October, but these days, you never know......
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For years, the story told about the Amazon has been one of destruction - the world's largest rainforest, a region of amazing biodiversity, key to the fight against climate change, being remorselessly felled. But that is no longer the whole truth. | By Justin RowlattBBC News, Amazonia
The Environment Agency special ops team gathered in a sultry town right on the southern edge of the Amazon. A group of officers, men and women, were relaxing in the shade of a majestic mango tree outside their offices. They were smoking and chatting.
These aren't bureaucrats with crumpled suits and clipboards. In Brazil, environment agents wear military fatigues, with heavy black pistols slung casually on their thighs.
These officers are, as I was to discover, soldiers on the front line in what Brazil regards as a war - a war to protect the Amazon rainforest.
I'd been invited along on one of the agency's routine raids in the jungle. The idea was to target a gang of illegal loggers the satellite monitoring team had spotted working in the forest.
On a map pinned to the wall, three commanders were working out strategies and logistics, just like a military operation. I was starting to feel distinctly anxious.
"Are the loggers likely to be armed?" I asked.
"Don't worry about guns," said the lead officer, Evandro Selva. "They're only likely to have hunting rifles. Nothing serious."
Nothing serious?
Moments later, we were in a pickup truck on our way to the airstrip and before I knew it, Evandro was urging me into the helicopter, its blades already scything through the humid air.
I just had time to strap myself in before he gestured for take-off and the ground shrank away. The pilot banked the craft round and off we thudded towards our target.
I was in Brazil to report on that rare thing, an environmental battle that is actually being won. For decades, pretty much the only story we've heard from the Amazon is about the remorseless tide of destruction sweeping through the forest.
The received wisdom has always been that it is unstoppable. It is certainly true that the economic logic of deforestation is powerful - land in the Amazon is worth far more if the trees are cut down. But I was here to discover the remarkable progress Brazil has made in silencing the chainsaws.
My journey was to take me across the southern Amazon, the area the Brazilians call "the arc of destruction" - a grey area between civilisation and one of the world's last true wildernesses.
For years it was a vision of hell here. Vast fires swept through the forest while the chainsaws whined, and armoured tractors roared as they grubbed up the roots of the great Amazonian trees.
We could see the fruits of all this labour from the window of the helicopter. We flew over vast open fields, some many kilometres square that have been carved out of the virgin forest just in the last decade or so.
An hour into our flight, Evandro signalled that we were nearing the target. We were over what looked to me like pristine jungle when suddenly the carpet of trees gave way and a vast clearing opened up beneath us.
Even I could tell they had been freshly cut. There were still some trees standing - tall fragile-looking Brazil nut trees - but on the ground were great rough mounds of branches and brush. I could see open scars in the red earth where the machines had gouged their passage.
Over the headphones I could hear excited shouting in Portuguese. One of the officers pointed down. I saw a truck piled high with tree trunks and a tractor in front of it. Beside it were two, possibly three men, looking up at the helicopter.
We wheeled around and pilot started to bring the helicopter down. It kicked up a storm of dust and dry leaves. The rotors seemed perilously close to the trees. I hung on tight.
Then we were on the ground and running. The truck and tractor were still there but, of course, the culprits had fled.
"They'll be back," Evandro said confidently. "We'll just hide here and wait for them."
The three officers hid among the logs and branches, pistols in their hands. Cameraman Keith Morris and I also took cover. Meanwhile, the helicopter flew off in another flurry of leaves and red earth.
Then all was silent. Just the five of us crouching silently in the hot sun, clouds of tiny bees swarming around our faces and hands.
How can this possibly stop the onslaught, I thought to myself.
In the decade between 1996 and 2005, 19,500 sq km (7,530 sq miles) of jungle was lost on average every single year. The comparison is overused, but that really is an area about the size of Wales or New Jersey each year. It reached a peak in 2004 when more than 27,000 sq km was lost.
Then, in 2004 Brazil declared war - it said it would cut deforestation by 80% by 2020.
Seven years later and it has almost reached its goal. The latest figures, released just weeks ago, show that 2011 had the lowest rates of deforestation since records began three decades ago - just over 6,200 sq km was cut. That's 78% down on 2004, still a lot of trees - an area the about the size of Devon, or Delaware - but a huge improvement.
Of course, the Brazilian government cannot claim all the credit. On my journey across the arc of destruction I met a bizarre cast of characters all of whom are playing a role:
But for the moment I was still hunched in the bushes, the first twinges of cramp in my leg and a river of sweat running down my back. We had been waiting half an hour when - just like in the movies - I heard a branch snap underfoot and suddenly the officers were up and running.
Hope
"Para ai! Para ai!" they shouted - "Stop right there!"
I saw a man in a ragged T-shirt dive into the dirt, arms wide as if he had been crucified. Another hesitated on the edge of the forest. The officer in front of me fired his gun. The man turned and darted off into the trees.
In all, the officers arrested five men and impounded three trucks and two tractors. I'd been nervous about confronting these guys but they seemed rather pathetic, smoking rollups in their scruffy clothes. The agents, however, seemed very content with their haul.
We hitched a lift back to the helicopter sitting on top of a pile of huge tree trunks on the back of a truck the enforcement officers had seized from the loggers. As we bounced back through the jungle, I couldn't help feeling a great sense of hope.
Of course, the fact that there is still an illegal logging operation like this just an hour's helicopter ride from a major Brazilian city shows that there is still huge pressure on the forest. But extraordinary as it sounds, it really does seem as if the war to stop the destruction of Amazon rainforest is being won.
What's more this is happening before it is too late, because what most people don't realise is just how much of the forest is still standing. Satellite images confirm almost 80% of the Amazon is still intact.
What an inspiring thought to begin the New Year, I thought, as the battered old truck coughed and wheezed its way along the dusty path between the towering trees.
Crossing Continents is on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, 5 January at 11:00 GMT and on Monday, 9 January at 20:30 GMT. Listen again via the BBC iPlayer or by downloading the podcast.
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In the heat of battle, high over enemy lines, America's heavy bombers flew into occupied Europe with the images of loved ones emblazoned on the sides of their planes as a reminder of home. | By Martin BarberBBC News, Norfolk
The troops who were based in East Anglia during World War II said their lives became more bearable thanks to the talents of United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) artists who created highly personalised art for the nose cones of their aeroplanes.
Don Allen was a nose artist and crew chief with the Fourth Fighter Group, based at Debden in Essex during the conflict.
"Some of them wanted outright nudes - but I guess my Eagle Scout background gave me little bit of a puritan approach. I guess I tried to keep the necessary parts covered, even though I wanted to make a tease out of it."
There were 200,000 US servicemen of the Eighth Air Force in England during the war. Based mostly in East Anglia the Mighty Eighth, as they were known, consisted of bomber and fighter groups.
This weekend marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the USAAF heavy bombing offensives against Germany in World War II from USAAF Station 110 (RAF Polebrook) in Northamptonshire.
'A bit saucy'
The nose art created by Mr Allen, and the memories of the American servicemen who flew in the planes he painted, have been captured in Nose Art and Pin-Ups - a documentary by former Norfolk-based film-maker Gail Downey.
Capturing the veterans' memories on film became Ms Downey's own mission.
"I was fascinated by the images the crews had chosen and what they meant to these young men facing deadly dangers every day.
"I wanted to make sure their stories of life in East Anglia were preserved for future generations. If I didn't do this there would come a point when nobody was around to tell them, now I've got them recorded forever."
From pin-ups such as Blondie, to girlfriends and wives such as Margie Darling, the aircrafts' nose art has become part of WWII history. The nose art united bomber crews and "gave them an identity".
'Something to pat'
Examples of the work are now displayed at the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum at Thorpe Abbotts, near Diss, in south Norfolk.
Museum curator Ron Batley said: "They did it to show it was their plane, their crew and painting their jackets with the same art showed they were a team.
"It gave them an identity and it was something they could do to colour their lives - it was a great morale booster.
"It was frowned upon by the top brass as it broke all the rules, but they tolerated it. You could say some of it was a bit saucy."
Ms Downey spent five weeks travelling across America's East Coast to record the veterans' memories of service in East Anglia.
"These were young men who faced death every day. They told me the artwork personalised their aircraft and gave them something 'to pat' before and after every mission," she said.
"These men, now in their 90s, were once brave young men, who, in their own words, were just doing their job - but what a job they had to do."
Supported by the USA-based Eighth Air Force Historical Society, Nose Art and Pin-Ups will be screened at veterans' reunions across America in October, with plans for it to be screened at independent cinemas throughout East Anglia.
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The Russian government is to spend at least 2.34 trillion roubles ($35bn, £23bn) to try to stave off an economic crisis, following a collapse in oil prices and the value of the rouble. | The country has also been subject to economic sanctions by the West over its involvement in the crisis in Ukraine.
Russia will spend most of the cash on federal loans, pensions and recapitalising its banks.
The country will also make public spending cuts.
Over the next three years most spending, apart military and social programmes, will be hit.
Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Russia's economy will contract by 3% this year and 1% in 2016.
Measures
Russia's government will spend about one trillion roubles to recapitalise banks through the issue of government bonds.
The plan includes a separate scheme to help recapitalise some banks with 250bn roubles, while 300bn roubles will be provided to Vnesheconombank, the state development bank.
There will be an extra 200bn roubles in state guarantees to finance investment projects, and regional governments will get 160bn roubles in federal loans.
Meanwhile, the government has proposed public spending cuts of 10% this year and 5% over the next two years.
The cuts have yet to be approved by the Russian parliament.
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A man in his 90s has died after a crash involving his car, a people carrier and a double-decker bus in Cornwall. | Devon and Cornwall Police said the man was in a red Nissan Micra with his wife when the crash happened on Chywoone Hill, Newlyn, at about 10:30 GMT on Thursday 12 November.
He later died from his injuries. His wife, in her 80s, was recovering in hospital, police said.
Police have appealed for witnesses and dashcam footage of the crash.
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On 23 March, a 56-year-old man living in a vast, labyrinthine slum in the western Indian city of Mumbai went to see a doctor. He was feeling feverish and had a bad cough. | Soutik BiswasIndia correspondent
The garment trader lived in Dharavi where more than half-a-million people are spread over 2.5 grubby sq km, which is less than a square mile. (Imagine a population larger than Manchester living in an area smaller than Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.) The slum was the inspiration for the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire film and city planners from all over the world have studied its throbbing economy and society.
The local doctor examined the man and he left with a prescription for cough syrup and paracetamol. Three days later, the man turned up at the Sion Hospital close to home. His fever had climbed and the cough was getting worse. He said he had no travel history, so doctors gave him more cough syrup and sent him home once again.
On 29 March, the man returned to the hospital with signs of respiratory distress. Doctors admitted him, and promptly sent swabs for the Covid-19 test.
Three days later, the results arrived - he had tested positive. His condition deteriorated sharply and doctors tried to move him to a bigger hospital already treating Covid-19 patients.
It was too late: he died that evening.
That garment trader was the first Covid-19 patient from Dharavi. People living in this packed-to-the gills slum city suffer from all the common diseases afflicting Mumbai, one of the world's most densely-populated cities, from diarrhoea to malaria.
But an outbreak of coronavirus in a place where social distancing is an oxymoron could easily turn into a grave public health emergency and overwhelm the city's stretched public health system.
Nobody realises this more than the officials racing to track and contain the infection.
Patient No 1 of Dharavi lived with his eight-member family - his wife, four daughters, and two sons - in a poky 420 sq ft one-room apartment in a low-rise slum tenement ringed by squalid shanties.
"When we asked his family, they told us the man had no recent travel history and only went to the local mosque," Kiran Dighavkar, an assistant municipal commissioner in charge of the area, told me.
But there was a twist in the tale.
The man owned another apartment in the same complex. There he hosted five people who had reportedly arrived from Delhi after attending a conference in early March organised by Tablighi Jamaat, a religious movement that has followers in more than eight countries including Indonesia, Malaysia and the US.
Hundreds of people who attended the religious event in the capital set off several Covid-19 clusters across the country and are now linked to some 650 cases across 14 states.
The police believe the five men lived in the Dharavi apartment for two days - between 19 and 21 March- before they left for Kerala. "We are trying to trace these people," said Mr Dighavkar.
"We have to find out the source of infection. How did this man get the infection and from whom? And we have to contain this infection by taking aggressive steps," he said.
The family of the deceased trader insists he didn't have a passport, something that the police are sceptical of. So they are trying to dig out his mobile phone records to find out more about his movements.
For the moment, the race is to ensure that the infection is contained. So 308 apartments and 80 shops in nine six-storey buildings in the complex where the trader lived have been completely sealed. Some 2,500 residents have been put under home quarantine. Food rations are being supplied. Health workers have disinfected the apartments with household bleach. Swabs of eight 'high-risk' occupants of the building - the trader's family and an acquaintance in the building - were sent for testing.
More than 130 residents above the age of 60 and another 35 who are suffering from unrelated respiratory diseases are being closely watched for Covid 19 symptoms.
Fearing an outbreak, authorities have taken over the 50-bed Sion Hospital, and quickly set up a 300-bed quarantine facility in a neighbouring sports complex. Protective gear has been given to doctors and nurses at the hospital.
Yet all this may not be enough to prevent an outbreak.
On Thursday, a 35-year-old doctor working with a private hospital and living in the slum tested positive for the virus. Municipality workers scrambled to isolate and seal 300 people living in the doctor's building. They have also identified 13 high-risk contacts in the building and sent their swabs for testing. The doctor told officials that two nurses in his hospital had tested positive for the virus. And at the weekend, a 30-year-old woman inside the same building complex as the trader, a 60-year-old man, who owns a metal fabrication shop and a 21-year-old male lab technician, tested positive.
"We are still able to try to contain the infection of the gated slum colonies. But there are the slums outside, and if we get cases there, we can't isolate them at home, and have to send even the high-risk cases to the sports complex quarantine centre," says Mr Dighavkar.
If that happens, the struggle to contain the infection will turn into a messy battle. The local hospital and makeshift quarantine will be easily overrun by cases.
Testing will have to be stepped up and results will have to arrive in time. After the first two cases - the trader and the doctor - 21 samples were collected from the slum. After more than 48 hours, the results of only seven have come in. The state-run hospital where the testing is being done says it is swamped by samples. Another 23 samples were picked up after the two new cases and sent to the lab on Saturday. It is not clear when the results will arrive.
"We are losing time because of the delay in results. It also delays shifting people who test positive into isolation," Virendra Mohite, the medical officer, who is leading the health teams in the slum, told me.
These are some of the real challenges to contain a massive outbreak of a disease in a unique, otherwise self-contained slum, which is home to fishermen, potters, furniture makers, garment makers, tailors, accountants, waste recyclers and even some of Mumbai's edgiest rappers. Dharavi, writer Annie Zaidi once observed, is a place full of "stories of desperation and grit, initiative and very, very hard work."
Now it faces its most daunting challenge of preventing a cataclysmic wave of contagion.
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Border staff have seized nine million cigarettes at Felixstowe docks, which would have avoided £2m in unpaid tax. | Border Force said the cargo arrived on Wednesday, 17 April with a false manifest.
The cigarettes arrived at the port from Malaysia. The ship's documents claimed it was carrying plastic containers.
Charlotte Mann, Border Force officer at Felixstowe, said: "You would struggle to find a more brazen smuggling attempt.
"The container was full of cigarettes stacked floor to ceiling throughout," she added.
The government agency said confiscated cigarettes were destroyed.
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A British team is developing a car that will be capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the vehicle will mount an assault on the land speed record. The vehicle will be run on Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa, in 2015 and 2016.
Wing Commander Andy Green, world land-speed record holder, is writing a diary for the BBC News website about his experiences working on the Bloodhound project and the team's efforts to inspire national interest in science and engineering.
| By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder
It was exactly 30 years ago that Thrust 2 broke the World Land Speed Record - 633mph - and brought the record back to Britain.
Until then, it seemed that the US had taken the record away from us for good, with all their new-fangled jet and rocket technology.
Fortunately for Britain, a certain Richard Noble decided that we should get it back.
When he set the record in 1983, he reminded us (and the rest of the world) that Britain was still a world-beater.
Now, 30 years later, we're building something that would go past Thrust 2 like it's standing still - Bloodhound SSC, the world's first 1,000mph car.
We have the best motorsports industry in the world (if you need proof, just have a look at where all the Formula 1 teams are based) and one of the best aerospace industries (see the RAF's world-class new Typhoon aircraft for further details).
Bloodhound is going to be a product of both industries, with a bit of space technology thrown in.
It's another world champion in the making.
The car is being assembled at our Technical Centre in Bristol, and every time I see it, more parts have been added.
It's also attracting attention from all over the globe: we've got more than 200 countries following it on the Bloodhound SSC website.
One of the impressive things about the build is the precision involved.
For example, we are aiming to assemble the fin to an accuracy of better than 1/12th of a degree.
The whole car is being assembled with this kind of precision with the aid of a "surface table" - a super-flat, 7m-long slab of cast iron that weighs 10 tonnes.
The accuracy of the build is regularly checked using a Hexagon laser, which will measure the position of any part of the car, in three dimensions, to one millionth of a metre.
This has given us a bit of a problem, though, as the surface table (all 10 tonnes of it) keeps moving.
After a lot of checking, it would appear that the surface table, and the whole of our Technical Centre, is actually floating.
The ends of the table move up and down by a couple of millimetres or so with the tide. We're only a few hundred metres from the River Avon and the tide in the river makes the floor (and the surface table, and therefore our chassis) go up and down very slightly.
If we're fitting new components, the first thing we have to do is re-level the chassis, so that the new bits go on perfectly straight.
No-one said that building a 1,000mph car was going to be easy - but we didn't expect to be afloat while we were doing it!
The last of the rear upper-chassis ribs have now been delivered.
These are the big heavy ribs that will have to support the fin, while it's keeping the car straight.
The fin has been stressed to take a 25kN (2.5 tonne) side load.
I'm staggered by how much that is (we could lay the car on its side and park two normal road cars on the fin) and how little it is (at 1,000mph, the fin will develop 25kN of side load at a yaw angle of only 0.9 degrees).
Sounds like my driving might have to be as accurate as the chassis build - although the 2.5 tonnes of correcting force should help.
Don't forget that while the fin is doing its best to keep us pointy-end forwards, you can be right there (or at least your name can). If you want your name to travel at 1,000mph, then sign up here to our fin programme.
There's more good news from the aerodynamics team this month.
We've been worrying about something called the "yaw static margin" for a while now.
The yaw static margin is the distance between the centre of gravity and the aerodynamic centre of the car. In other words, this is what keeps the car pointy-end forwards at high speeds.
Ideally, we want the car to look like a dart, with the weight up front and big feathers at the back.
We were worried that the static margin (a measure of how dart-like the car is) was smaller than we wanted. It turns out that we'd made two small errors in the calculation.
One was in the aerodynamic model of the fin, which hadn't captured the latest changes to extend the trailing edge, so that made the centre of yaw move back a bit.
The other change was finding an error in the (hugely complex) centre of gravity calculation, which moved it forward almost 300mm. That's a big gain, and suddenly the car is looking a lot more stable.
This will make it easier to keep the car pointy-end forwards and, since that's my job as the driver, I'm delighted.
While we're running the car on the desert, one of the key things we'll be checking is the wheel loads.
These wheel loads are the result of the car's weight plus all the aerodynamic loads on the vehicle, so we're going to be checking all the aerodynamic forces (and pressures) very carefully.
I've just seen a computer programme written by David Naumann, a PhD student at Swansea University. David's programme will compare the real-world pressures, from 120 pressure sensors on the car, with the predicted pressures from the Swansea computer model.
This will allow us to check the car's performance very rapidly.
We're planning to publish the programme before we start running, so that you can check the car's performance for yourself at home, every time we run.
It will also let the 5,500 schools in our Education Programme follow the science as we test it. If your school hasn't signed up to our free programme yet, then join the Bloodhound Education Programme here. It's going to be quite an adventure.
URT is now finishing off our carbon-fibre intake duct, which is essentially just a tube to feed air to the car's EJ200 jet engine.
The intake was made in two halves and then bolted together to form the 2.2m-long tube. It's another part of the car that will see some big forces.
At 1,000mph, the intake will be pressurised to 1.6 Bar (24lb per sq inch), which will try to force the two halves apart with a force of 290kN. That's 29 tonnes.
Put another way, each bolt that holds the two halves together will take a load of 13.2kN, or 1.3 tonnes.
So after parking two average-sized cars on the side of the fin, we could pick each of them up in turn with just one bolt from the intake.
That would explain why the bolts cost about £20 each!
If that wasn't enough to worry about, the intake has also been designed to withstand an engine "backfire" without collapsing.
If the airflow into a jet engine breaks down, the jet can burp back the air it has been ingesting, known in the jet engine world as a "surge". This could briefly push the intake pressure up almost 3 Bar (44 psi), increasing the load on the intake to over 50 tonnes. That's the weight of four double-decker buses.
The bad news is that this load would pretty much wreck the intake. The good news is that we're using the Typhoon's EJ200 engine, one of the world's best jet engines.
In normal operation it just doesn't ever surge. I can floor the throttle pedal (which controls the jet engine) at a standstill, and the engine will give me as much power as possible, without any risk that it will surge.
The intake doesn't have much to worry about - and neither do I.
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Police have released an image of a man wanted in connection to a "cowardly" attack on an officer who was hit in the neck with a glass bottle. | The officer was struck in the back of the neck as she arrested a man on Old Compton Street, Soho, shortly after pubs closed at 22:00 GMT on 4 November.
Police were patrolling the area as bars closed for the last time before a four-week lockdown began.
The Met Police said the officer was "thankfully not seriously harmed".
PC Jack Greaves said: "This was both a cowardly and dangerous action that could have had much more serious consequences for the officer.
"Police officers are just like you, we put ourselves in harm's way to protect you.
"No officer should have to face being assaulted at work."
The incident has been widely shared on social media, the force said.
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The Highlands is to be used as a test location for the development of lower cost technology to speed up internet access in rural areas.
| The UK government has delayed the roll out of 2 megabits per second broadband because of a lack of funds.
Broadband companies have met with politicians and civil servants in London to discuss ways of finding cheaper alternatives.
East Sutherland and Edderton is among areas where test projects will run.
Development agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) was involved in the London talks.
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A Serbian inquiry has found that the president's jet went into a sudden plunge on a flight to Rome last week when the co-pilot tried to mop up a coffee spill. | President Tomislav Nikolic and other passengers were reportedly thrown around the Falcon 50's cabin before the captain managed to regain control.
Coffee was spilt on the control panel and the co-pilot mistakenly disengaged the autopilot when trying to mop it up.
The jet later turned back to Belgrade.
President Nikolic had been heading to Rome on 17 April for a meeting with Pope Francis.
Co-pilot Bojan Zoric has been suspended after the inquiry found he had "accidentally activated the emergency switch". That caused the plane to plunge from a height of 34,000 feet (10,303m).
One of the Falcon's three engines shut down because of the sudden drop in altitude, but it was quickly restarted.
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Two suspected migrants have been brought ashore at Dover after coastal patrols intercepted an inflatable boat in the Channel. | The vessel was spotted off the Kent coast near St Margaret's Bay.
Both said they were Iranian nationals and were passed to immigration officials, the Home Office said.
More than 100 migrants, the majority of whom claimed to be Iranian, crossed the Channel from northern France in November.
Warnings have gone out from UK authorities about the dangers of taking small boats on the Dover-Calais route - the world's busiest shipping lane.
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The interview, between one of Pakistan's best-known TV news anchors, Hamid Mir, and leading opposition politician Asif Ali Zardari, was only a few minutes into its transmission when it was suddenly interrupted by an unscheduled ad break and news bulletin. | By Secunder KermaniBBC News, Islamabad
Mr Mir vented his frustration on Twitter, blaming unnamed censors. "We are not living in a free country," he said.
Just over a week later, another TV interview, of another opposition politician, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, cut to an unexpected ad break midway. When the break ended, instead of Ms Sharif, viewers were presented with an old interview of a leading figure from the ruling party.
The journalist conducting the interview, however, continued with his questions, broadcasting instead online via a video streaming app.
These are two of the most prominent examples of what has been termed "unannounced censorship" in Pakistan. Last week journalists held protests outside press clubs in major cities across the country demanding an end to restrictions on what they publish and broadcast.
Supporters of the government claim the complaints are made by biased journalists. During a visit to Washington this week Prime Minister Imran Khan dismissed allegations of censorship, telling reporters: "To say there are curbs on [the] Pakistani press is a joke."
However, there appears to be clear evidence of attempts to prevent criticism of Mr Khan's government and the Pakistani military, as well as to suppress claims by his political opponents that they are being unfairly accused in corruption cases. Pakistan is ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in the 2019 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.
The Pakistani Army denies having any role in media censorship.
The clampdown on press freedom inside the country contrasts with attempts by the Pakistani authorities to improve their foreign relations, notably with the US, Afghanistan and India. President Trump has praised Pakistan for its role in facilitating peace talks with the Taliban.
One of the main targets of the current censorship blitz is Maryam Nawaz Sharif, whose father, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, is serving a jail sentence on corruption charges.
Earlier this month Ms Sharif released a secretly recorded video of one of the judges who had convicted her father, apparently admitting he had been blackmailed into finding him guilty. The judge subsequently denied the claims, saying the video had been "edited", but a number of channels who broadcast Ms Sharif's news conference were later taken off air for several days. At other times, parts of speeches from Ms Sharif's rallies broadcast on television have been muted.
One journalist, who asked to remain anonymous for his own safety, told the BBC how censorship worked. He explained that TV channels broadcast live programmes with a delay of at least about 10 seconds, with "an employee hovering over the mute button".
He said topics that would require muting - or if a whole segment was too controversial, a quick cut to adverts - included criticism of the government or Pakistan's powerful security establishment, which is supportive of Imran Khan's administration.
Failure to comply, the journalist told me, would result in angry phone calls or visits from members of the Pakistani army or intelligence services. Instead of threats directed at media workers, pressure tactics would be applied to the channel itself. "Advertising agencies get told, 'Don't them give ads.' Cable operators get told to change the number the channel appears on, or just to shut them down completely," he said. "They've got their hands around our throats."
However, it would be wrong to suggest there's a complete blackout on all political criticism on the airwaves. Prime Minister Imran Khan has claimed he has faced "unprecedented" personal attacks in the press. Meanwhile opposition politicians, other than Maryam Nawaz Sharif, do still regularly appear on talk shows.
"We are a democracy on paper… you can't do an Egypt here by imposing a blanket ban," said media analyst Adnan Rehmat.
Censorship in Pakistan, he said, was aimed at restricting interviews of "the top leadership" of opposition parties and coverage of their rallies. But "second- or third-tier" figures were allowed to take part in TV programmes as they are "not newsmakers". The application of censorship varies in intensity, Mr Rehmat added. Sometimes it is "heavy-handed" and at times more subtle.
In the lead-up to last year's general elections in Pakistan, journalists faced similar pressures from the intelligence services, again in an often haphazard fashion. A leading TV channel was taken off air in large parts of the country for a number of weeks, while the best-known English language newspaper had its circulation severely curtailed.
At the time, the censorship seemed designed to prevent discussion of allegations that Imran Khan was being helped into power by the security establishment. Now that he's prime minister, many observers have suggested press freedom has further deteriorated.
Speaking to the BBC, TV anchor Hamid Mir, who was shot and injured in 2014, labelled Imran Khan's government "a civilian dictatorship" alleging "censorship is increasing day by day".
But he was also critical of opposition political parties for their attitudes towards journalists while they were in power. "They always played double games, and now they are paying the price," he said.
Mr Mir knows firsthand how dangerous life can be for a journalist in Pakistan. He survived an attack by the Taliban in 2012 and in 2014 was shot six times in the abdomen and legs by unknown gunmen.
Mr Mir famously accused elements with the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency of being behind the 2014 attack, which the ISI furiously denounced as a baseless claim.
Imran Khan has flatly denied that censorship exists in Pakistan. He has suggested that certain media outlets have a vested interest in undermining his government and supporting claims from opposition politicians that corruption charges against them are politically motivated. While in Washington he accused one unnamed channel of doing everything it could to "protect" former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif while he faced trial.
A series of tweets from his party's official account earlier this month acknowledged that press freedom was "a building block of democratic society". However it added that "regurgitating propaganda to serve vested interests, running character-assassination campaigns… undermine freedom of press."
Reports in Pakistani newspapers have suggested the government wants to place a ban on attempts by the media to "promote the narrative of convicted persons". Former President Asif Ali Zardari, whose interview with Hamid Mir was taken off air, is currently facing trial on corruption charges, while Maryam Nawaz Sharif is on bail pending an appeal against a conviction in an unrelated corruption case.
After Mr Zardari's interview was cut short, the government's Special Adviser for Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan told reporters it had happened because Mr Zardari was in jail pending his trial and is only supposed to be allowed out to attend parliament.
However, officials from Pakistan's broadcasting regulator told the BBC they had not ordered the interview be taken off air, and said no decree banning "convicted persons" had yet been issued.
Mr Mir said he held both the security establishment and Imran Khan's government responsible for the clampdown on press freedom, as they have acknowledged they are "on the same page" on all issues.
The Pakistani army denies interfering in politics, but many journalists believe it remains the driving force behind the censorship, describing criticism of the army as a "red line".
Broadcast of the TV bulletins of the US government-funded Voice of America has been indefinitely stopped in Pakistan, a move many believe is linked to coverage of a protest movement alleging human rights abuses by the security forces. Rallies by the Pashtun Protection Movement group receive almost no coverage at all, despite attracting significant support in the districts bordering Afghanistan.
The journalist who spoke anonymously to the BBC about the censorship at his channel said the military was influencing both what isn't said on air, and what is said. "Things are so minutely monitored… forget Imran Khan, forget the army chief, if they even see a statement by the information minister they like, they'll send you a screenshot and tell you to run it as breaking news.
"I often say, the only thing that's left is for them to send a brigadier to anchor the news."
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Chinese film star Fan Bingbing has been ranked last in a report judging A-list celebrities on how "socially responsible" they are, fuelling further speculation about the whereabouts of the actress, who has not been seen in public for more than two months. | By Kerry AllenBBC Monitoring
The 2017-2018 China Film and Television Star Social Responsibility Report, carried widely by state media outlets, ranks Chinese celebrities according to three criteria: professional work, charitable actions and personal integrity.
It praises celebrities who have become "relatively strong role models", but also highlights cases where it says they have had a "negative" social impact.
But what is most notable is its 0% rating for Fan Bingbing, one of China's biggest stars, who hasn't been seen in public since 1 July when she visited a children's hospital.
The report was authored by academics at Beijing Normal University.
Who is Fan Bingbing?
She is known internationally as a singer and model, as well as for her appearance in the X-Men film franchise.
Her name has been linked to a government probe involving celebrities using "yin-yang contracts" - a practice where one contract sets out an actor's real earnings, and another details a lower figure, with the latter submitted to the tax authorities.
Although Fan Bingbing's studio denies any wrongdoing, online users are speculating that the reason she scored 0% is a result of the widely-circulated allegations, which state media have said have had a negative impact on society.
There is no word on what has happened to Fan. However there is speculation she has been arrested.
Most recently, state-run Chinese publication Securities Daily published a report which said she had been placed "under control, and would "accept the legal decision".
But the story was pulled down a few hours later.
How does the report rank stars?
The authors said they studied the behaviour of 100 Chinese singers, actors, and public figures - based in China and abroad - to assess the extent of their social responsibility.
They did not specify exactly how they arrived at the results in the test, but said that their findings were based on "research and web-scraping".
Only nine celebrities were deemed to be socially responsible enough, however, with a pass requiring a score of more than 60%.The report stressed that celebrities had to do more to promote "positive energy" and hinted that they needed to be more aware of behaviour and actions that might have a "negative social impact".
"We wanted to have a more thorough evaluation of celebrities," Zhang Hongzhong, who led the project, told English-language news website Sixth Tone.
He said that many celebrities were in danger of being simply branded "little fresh meats" - an internet buzzword used to describe good looking young men - and that their activism and philanthropy work was often overlooked.
So who passed?
Top of the list is actor Xu Zheng (78%), who appeared in the highly acclaimed film Dying to Survive. The film was based on a true story about a Chinese man smuggling cheap Indian drugs into the mainland to help cancer sufferers.
Two and three in the list are members of the hugely popular boy band TFBoys, in recognition of their philanthropic work. Another member comes fifth.
Actor Yang Yang (61.%), who ranks ninth, is highlighted because he set up a charity to help educate underprivileged children in remote mountainous regions.
How did people react?
State media are highlighting the report as a significant document, and outlets are praising the higher-ranked celebrities.
Social media users meanwhile - who have been long been fascinated by celebrity rankings - are weighing in on what the document might mean for their favourite celebrities, particularly Fan Bingbing.
Many users of the Sina Weibo microblog have voiced their surprise and concern that she has ranked so low, given there is no evidence of her being involved in any misconduct.
"Fan Bingbing has been working on a public welfare project," one user said. Another added that for her to get zero was "not right; she does a lot of public welfare."
"When the Tianjin fire broke out, Fan Bingbing donated one million yuan ($145,655; £112,565) to the Tianjin Fire Brigade. Has all the good she's done before just been erased?" one asked.
The bad ratings given to other celebrities has caused annoyance as well. One user, for instance, pointed out that actor Jackie Chan and Tibetan singer Han Hong, who rank 42nd and 59th, are well-known philanthropists.
Why does this report matter?
Chinese celebrities have long understood that taking a path of "virtue" is key to maintaining mainland audiences, and that it's extremely difficult to bounce back after being linked to scandal.
The country's media has also long stressed that celebrities need to spread "positive energy" among young audiences; in other words, to be upbeat and promote healthy moral values.
So they have lauded celebrities who have, for example, openly condemned tobacco or drug use.
But celebrities who voice opinions in line with government rhetoric gain even higher praise, for example if they promote the importance of young audiences referring to the self-ruling island of Taiwan as a "Chinese region" rather than a "country".
This latest emphasis on social responsibility, which media and fans alike are taking as a new mark of power, could now put more pressure on them to do just that.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
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The Sri Lankan defence ministry says the army has captured three Tamil Tiger rebel bases in the north-east of the country. | A military spokesman, Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, said government forces carried out a three-day operation against the rebels in the coastal district of Trincomalee.
There's been no official confirmation from the rebels.
Talks between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers broke down last year.
Correspondents say although the ceasefire is still officially in place, the country has been sliding back towards war.
An independent body overseeing the ceasefire says more than four thousand people have been killed since the truce was agreed five years ago.
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The number of residents to have died in a Covid outbreak at a south of Scotland care home has risen to eight. | Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership reported the first cases at the Alma McFadyen Care Centre in Dalbeattie in early November.
A statement said there had now been a total of 42 positive cases associated with the outbreak.
The partnership said thoughts were with the families involved at this "difficult time".
It said the situation at the centre was now "much improved" but that did not mitigate the impact on residents and their relatives.
The partnership added that containing the spread of Covid was "not at all easy - even when all the correct protocols are in place to address the virus".
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George Osborne has a tricky conundrum on his hands. | By Simon JackBusiness editor
How does he convince businesses that he is on their side while at the same time hitting them up for more money to fund his deficit reduction plans?
Business is feeling pretty duffed up by the chancellor after increases to the national living wage and the new apprenticeship levy.
Then there's the raid on insurance companies and the time and expense of pension auto-enrolment.
You can perhaps understand why business lobbies are saying "enough, already".
He is unlikely to leave them alone. Pressure to hit his budget surplus holy grail by the end of the parliament while not adjusting the big three - income tax, national insurance and VAT - will see him forced to come back for another bite at business.
Proceed with care
He will be loathe to raise headline rates so he needs to broaden the base - the amount available to be taxed.
So there may be limits on how much of the interest companies are paying on debt can be set against profits.
This is a key part of international attempts to avoid tax by stuffing UK companies full of debt - often borrowed from their own subsidiaries in lower tax jurisdictions.
However, lots of infrastructure projects (one of his favourite areas) rely on lots of debt financing so he'll have to proceed with care.
He's abandoned major reform of pension taxes but there are other things he could do.
The contributions employers make to pensions don't attract National Insurance - but it's a form of pay and maybe they should?
Charging full whack would raise nearly £15bn (and business would scream blue murder) but maybe a portion of it could be targeted and maybe at higher earners.
It would raise serious money for the chancellor but would be very unpopular with employers.
Beef and the sea
Expect more help for the North Sea. This is a no brainer because currently he is not making any tax out of oil and gas there as the companies are making losses and laying off thousands of highly paid (and taxed) staff.
Big tax cuts could slow that process.
If there is one big beef that businesses have it is rates.
For many larger companies this has overtaken corporation tax as a cost.
We will get a long promised review on rates and business will want promises of reform.
However, the chancellor has already said any reform will be fiscally neutral - in other words - the same total amount will be paid so the capacity for wowing businesses is small.
He could decide to change the rate at which rates go up from the hardly used Retail Prices Index currently at 1.3% to the more commonly used and usually lower Consumer Prices Index - currently at 0.3%.
But business rates produce £25bn a year and he'll be reluctant to put this golden goose on a diet.
Elephant
One phrase you are guaranteed to hear is "Business Tax Roadmap".
He wants to make the UK competitive and corporation tax is already due to fall from 20% to 18% by the end of the parliament.
By presenting a clear path of where various taxes, reliefs and business rates are headed he hopes to widen the tax base while giving business a bit of confidence they won't be ambushed by surprise moves down the line.
He'll hope that his roadmap will help offset the uncertainty facing businesses as we approach the EU referendum.
The rather large elephant which will be sitting in the room with him tomorrow.
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A cyclist on an "unusual three-wheeler bike" has died in a crash with a lorry. | The collision, on the westbound carriageway of the A303 near Solstice Park Services, happened just after midday on Monday.
Wiltshire Police said the 71-year-old man died at the scene and the road was closed for five hours.
PC Rich Hatch appealed for anyone who may have seen the cyclist or the crash to contact officers.
"The cyclist was riding an unusual three-wheeler bike, which may mean people will have noticed him," he said.
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Many older Conservatives remember days when they were much more unpopular than they are now - days of strikes, riots and massive protests on the street, days when their leader's name was spat out with anger, days when they felt proud to be Tories. | Nick RobinsonPolitical editor
Those Tories look back with fondness at that time of heroic unpopularity - when they awoke with pride to hear the news about the protests of the dragons Mrs Thatcher was slaying - the unions, CND and the Soviet Union.
Those same older Tories loathe the daily wearying grind of the age of austerity and coalition compromise.
They wake up now to hear with indifference or disappointment or, worse still, anger the news of what their government is doing. It is gay marriage which has released that fury.
Gay marriage was always certain to cause a furious row since it challenges sincere religious beliefs, deeply-rooted social conservatism and a mistrust of the metropolitan elite who are blamed for imposing an ideology of legally enforced equality on the country.
However, the real reason for the anger directed at David Cameron is that many Conservatives have realised that they and their attitudes are the dragon their leader has decided to slay.
Many believe that their leader only embraced gay marriage as part of his obsession with modernising the Tories and/or to claim credit for a measure the Lib Dems were determined to drive through.
There may be some truth in both but talking to senior Tories about gay marriage reminds me of talking to Tony Blair about Iraq.
When people hurled at him their belief that he was invading Iraq because of oil or a desperation to suck up to America he would reply "It's worse than you think, I really believe this".
The same is true of those around David Cameron and his acolytes. They really do believe in gay marriage. They believe much opposition to it is rooted in what they call "bigotry".
They want their government to be remembered for a great social change and not just its efforts to turn the economy around.
The divisions on display now stem from the fact that, in order to get their way, they are having to slay the sincerest beliefs of some of their own activists and MPs.
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A robot is to be questioned by a panel of MPs in what they are claiming is a first for UK democracy (regular viewers of Parliament may beg to differ). | Pepper - "a culturally aware" robot - was designed to assist with the care of older people.
But next Tuesday she will be assisting members of the education select committee understand the impact of artificial intelligence.
The committee will also quiz human experts during the session.
Pepper - who is part of an international research project funded by the EU and the Japanese government - is likely to be the star turn.
The committee will hear about her work with students at Middlesex University, including a project involving teaching primary school children.
After a demonstration by Pepper, the MPs will look at how robots can be used to support learning and how robotics will transform the workplace and classroom of the future.
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Few British legal cases in recent years have proved as controversial or emotionally charged as that over the fate of Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old baby who died on Friday after a lengthy battle over his medical treatment. | Nick TriggleHealth correspondent@nicktriggleon Twitter
During the many hours of legal debate in court, Katie Gollop QC, who led Great Ormond Street's legal team, described the case as "sad", but not "exceptional".
She was wrong. The case, which saw Charlie's parents take on the world-renowned hospital in the courts, was one of those rare cases that transcend the cut-and-thrust of legal argument.
Its impact reverberated around the country and the rest of the world, prompting protests on the streets, a mass outpouring of emotion on social media, the vilification of one of the most famous hospitals in the world and the intervention of both the Vatican and US president.
In doing so, it made us question the role of the parent, the motives of doctors and - as always in this digital age - wonder about the ever-growing influence of the internet. How did it come to this? And what does it tell us about society?
The tarnishing of a famous hospital
Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) is perhaps the most respected and well-known children's hospital in the world. It has been synonymous with excellence ever since it was founded in the 1850s with patients from all over the world now being sent there for pioneering treatment.
And yet in the course of this case it found itself under attack with some staff reporting they had been victims of "vile" abuse and threats (Charlie's parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, also reported that they had been the target of abuse on a daily basis.)
One of the problems the hospital faced, particularly as the case developed and the parents received more media attention, was that it simply could not win.
While Charlie's parents gave television and newspaper interviews and made pleas on social media, GOSH was left to rely on media statements and court papers to explain its position. The hospital said it was not possible to give Charlie the non-invasive treatment - a powder that could be added to his food - that his parents felt could help him in his battle with mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a condition which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.
Rational, scientific logic was never going to win hearts and minds against the raw emotion of parents trying to do everything they could for the severely ill baby.
Should more have been done by the world of medicine? As the case developed, GOSH started publishing more details about the case and its position.
But Prof Uta Frith, an expert in cognitive development at University College London, wonders if there is a lesson here, arguing science cannot be entirely stripped of its emotional context.
"We can never be 100% certain about our facts and theories. Emotion, which is utterly certain, wins in comparison.
"However, scientific reasoning cannot be completely stripped of emotion. Perhaps this is an asset we need to cultivate more. Reasoned evidence needs champions to engage the hearts of people."
The dilemma of modern medicine
But the case - and its importance - also comes down to a dilemma that becomes more acute as medicine develops. At what point is it appropriate not to treat patients and allow them to die?
These are discussions that go on every day in hospitals - and the overwhelming majority are resolved without major dispute.
Patients coming to the end of life - both the elderly and the young - are now routinely encouraged to discuss advanced care plans setting out how much they want doctors to do when they get closer to death. These plans cover everything from when it is appropriate to resuscitate to when treatment should be withdrawn and a patient moved on to palliative care to help them die with dignity.
Of course in Charlie's case, because he was a baby, this was simply not possible. Instead, he was kept alive on a ventilator while his parents and doctors took to the courts.
The medical profession - bound by the basic tenet of medicine "do no harm" - felt it was in his best interests to let him die with dignity rather than have an experimental treatment that they believed would do him no good. In court they argued he had "no quality of life and no real prospect of any quality of life".
But there is also an ethical dimension to this. Are doctors the right people to determine what constitutes "quality of life"? Do we put too much emphasis on their opinion?
Charlie Gard: A legal timeline
It is a point made by Prof Julian Savulescu, an expert in ethics at Oxford University. He believes Charlie's parents should have been allowed to take him to the US earlier in the year - even with the low odds that the treatment would have worked - given that they had raised £1.3m themselves.
He says GOSH - and the doctors the hospital consulted - made a "value judgement" that was reasonable to disagree with.
"The state should not have to pay for expensive experimental treatment with low prospect of success, but Charlie's parents have raised the funds," he says. "Charlie should have been allowed to go straight away - and saved hundreds of thousands of pounds of British taxpayer funds which have been used to provide months of intensive care.
"This is not a religious or right-to-life argument or an argument based on compassion. It's a secular ethical argument about the extreme complexity of judging someone's life to be not worth living."
The rights of parents
But that brings us on to one of the key arguments put forward by Charlie's parents during the hours of legal discussion - the rights of parents to make decisions for their children.
They believed it should have been up to them to decide what was best for their son. But this is not what the law says.
The 1989 Children's Act, which was introduced following a child abuse scandal in Cleveland, makes it clear that where a child is at risk of harm the state can and should intervene.
Subsequent legislation has followed and a framework has been created whereby the state has been emboldened to challenge the view of parents where they believe children's best interests are not being served.
This sees doctors oppose the decision of parents who are Jehovah's Witnesses and refuse blood transfusions for their children.
The law is also used by councils to take children they believe are at risk into care.
Of course, proving someone is at risk or can be helped by medical treatment is much easier to do than proving a treatment is no longer in the best interests of a child when the parents disagree.
But what was often overlooked in the Charlie Gard case was that it wasn't just the doctors against the parents. Charlie also had an independent guardian who agreed with the hospital.
Daniel Sokol, a medical ethicist and barrister, says the case has shone a light on this issue. "It reminds us that the rights of parents over their children are not absolute. They are limited by what is in the best interests of the child."
But he says it is interesting that in the US, which played such a key role through the intervention of doctors who said they would be prepared to treat Charlie, and because of President Donald Trump's offer of help, the rights of parents to decide what is best are much more enshrined.
"The wishes of parents and 'surrogates' generally carry more weight, which is why many US commentators have expressed surprise at the hospital's handling of this case," he says.
"For them, the doctors should do what the parents want."
How the digital world changed the case
It's fair to say this case simply would not have played out the way it did in the pre-internet age. It was with the help of social media and crowd funding that Charlie's parents were able to raise the funds for him to be treated in the US in the first place.
And it was via the internet that the parents were able to make a video appeal - just at the moment that it looked like Great Ormond Street would remove life support - to be given longer to say goodbye.
A week later the Vatican and Donald Trump intervened and the case ended up back in court. This time the issue was whether new evidence about the treatment warranted a re-think of the ruling that he should be allowed to die.
Mr Sokol says the influence of the internet was "remarkable". "Through the internet, in particular social media, the family obtained an enormous following, support from influential persons and vast amounts of funding.
"The family can find doctors, on the other side of the world, who will support their case."
Indeed, if there is to be one overriding legacy of the Charlie Gard case it is likely to be related to this.
There is already a long-term trend towards greater scepticism of medical opinion. Coupled to the power of the internet this could create an environment whereby doctors find their decisions increasingly challenged.
Read more from Nick
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Shipwrecked twice, what luck 21-year-old merchant seaman Roy Widdicombe had finally ran out 75 years ago. | By Steve DuffyBBC news
The sailor was heading back to Britain, a VIP passenger on board the cargo ship Siamese Prince, when it was sunk by a U-boat off the coast of Scotland. He died along with 67 crew and other passengers.
It was a fateful twist to an extraordinary World War Two story, which links together two maritime tragedies.
Widdicombe had been on the voyage home to Newport, weeks after he and Cardiff seaman Bob Tapscott rowed for 70 days in a tiny open-top boat after their ship was sunk in the mid Atlantic.
Their skeletal figures had washed up finally on a Bahamas beach after a remarkable and harrowing journey of nearly 2,300 miles (3,700km).
The survivors were greeted as heroes, but sadly there would be no happy ending for either of the young men.
Able seaman
They had been merchant seamen on board the ship Anglo-Saxon, which had left Newport with a crew of 32, many from south Wales.
After the ship's sinking, seven men managed to escape in an open boat in the middle of the Atlantic. But only two would survive the ordeal.
Tapscott was 19 and the youngest of six children. His father and grandfather were ships' pilots in Cardiff. He first went to sea before the war, aged 15, and had sailed to Argentina, Africa and the United States. By the time war was declared he was an able seaman.
Widdicombe had been born in Totnes, Devon, and sailed dinghies from the age of six. Just before he turned 11, he opted to join a training ship instead of taking his place at grammar school and eventually went to sea on passenger trips to the Caribbean and Mediterranean and later on freighters.
In the early days of the war, he spent just over a week in a lifeboat after his ship was lost. He survived another trip to Baltimore carrying scrap metal.
In Newport, he met Cynthia Pitman, and bought the suit for his wedding by bartering American cigarettes in Alicante during the Spanish civil war. They married in April 1940 and bought a house.
Then in the July, he joined the Anglo-Saxon.
The ship left Newport on 5 August, loaded with coal with only the captain initially knowing they were bound for Buenos Aires. It was also armed with a naval gun for protection.
By 21 August, the ship was 500 miles (800km) west of the Azores. As Widdicombe began his evening watch in the wheelhouse and Tapscott played cards, the ship was rocked by four explosions and then machine gun fire across the deck.
A German raider, the Widder, was attacking them with shells.
Within minutes, the Anglo-Saxon was ablaze, her captain was dead and lifeboats badly damaged. Within the hour she had sunk.
Widdicombe and Tapscott managed to escape with five others in a jolly boat, the 18ft-long (5m) craft used to ferry crew around at port. Others tried to escape in life rafts but were shot under the orders of the German skipper.
Anglo-Saxon jolly boat
6
oars
4
gallons of water
1 sail, compass, rusty axe, razor and oil lamp
2 rolls of bandage in medical kit
11 tins of condensed milk
3 tins of boiled mutton and a tin of ship's biscuit
In darkness, the jolly boat passed close to the enemy raider but the men only started rowing at a safe distance.
Of the seven inside, three had serious injuries.
The men kept to regular watches, strict rations and those fit enough took turns at rowing - with the hope for rescue or landfall within 16 days.
The first night after the wreck they spotted a ship, blacked out, but fearing it was the Widder returning, they were relieved when it passed by.
Four days in, the men were soon getting dehydrated; two of the injured were developing gangrene but Barry Collingwood Denny - keeping a log - reported the men ate a Sunday lunch of tinned mutton "which greatly improved their morale, which is splendid. No signs of giving up hope".
But as time wore on, their rations and water became depleted, they all grew weaker and there was no sign of a rescue.
This is what happened.
THE ORIGINAL SEVEN SURVIVORS:
'GETTING VERY WEAK'
Tapscott and Widdicombe had their own struggles. In the desperate ordeal, both twice decided to end it all over the side of the boat. But times they dragged themselves back inside, unable to accept their fate.
That last aborted attempt heralded a turning point. They took alcohol from the compass and drank it together that evening, laughing and joking. It was followed by their first proper sleep for weeks.
The next day - 12 September - the 22nd day on the boat - it finally started to rain and gave them enough water for the next six days and made swallowing a nibble from their diminishing biscuit ration a little easier.
It rained again on 20 September, two days after their rainwater had run out. But the sun was getting stronger and they were desperately hungry.
"Getting very weak but trusting in God to pull us through," Widdicombe wrote.
The next few days turned into weeks.
They thought they spotted land but it was a mirage. Their first sight of a ship - a large steam liner on the horizon - sped out of reach as they exhausted themselves rowing towards it.
They rode out a violent two-day storm and hit a whale.
By now, they took to chewing ribbons of floating seaweed although it increased their thirst. They took to eating their own peeling skin, shoes and the lining of Pilcher's tobacco pouch.
A flying fish flew into the boat and they sliced it in half with a razor. There were meagre handfuls of tiny crabs but fishing with a hook made from a safety pin proved useless.
By mid October, they could only crawl on all fours and were too weak to stay awake to sail during the night. Both started to suffer in the sun and were covered in small blisters; they had lost up to 80lbs (36kg) each - nearly half their body weight.
A DREAM AND A BEACH
By 27 October 1940, both men were too weak to row.
That night they heard a fish flapping in the bottom of the boat and in the morning they recovered it. It was a Bahamian hound fish and, when they looked up, the pair got their first sight of land.
It was no mirage this time. Within 20 minutes, they grounded on the beach and staggered into the shade on the edge of the bush.
On 30 October, 70 days after being shipwrecked and a journey of 2,275 miles (3660km), they were found by farmer Lewis Johnson and his wife Florence on the island of Eleuthera.
Mrs Johnson had had a premonition they would find something if they went to the beach. They did and returned with a rescue party.
Barely able to stand, Tapscott and Widdicombe were given coconuts and, soon, beer and bully beef and biscuits. They were taken by truck to the island commissioner's house.
After more food, clean clothes and a shave, they were flown to hospital in Nassau where they spent the next eight days. They had suffered exposure, starvation which brought on pellagra, insomnia and it had taken a huge mental toll, especially on Tapscott.
They started to recover and met the islands' governor, the Duke of Windsor - the former King Edward VIII - and the duchess, Wallace Simpson.
HEADING HOME
By the end of January 1941, Widdicombe was well enough to head home.
At one point, it had looked as if he might have to work his passage back to Britain.
But after some discussions between government departments it was agreed he should be a passenger on the Siamese Prince, a cargo ship carrying beef from New York to Liverpool and "some fuss" should be made of him.
But within a day's sailing British shores, off the Faroe Islands, the ship was hit by two torpedoes from a U-boat. This time there were no survivors.
The trauma for Widdicombe's young bride Cynthia seems unimaginable. She was married for only four months before he left Newport.
Despite hearing in October the Anglo-Saxon "must be presumed lost", she had never given up hope that he was still alive. Then was the joy at his survival.
Arrangements had been made for Cynthia to travel by train to Liverpool to be reunited with her husband. Her bag was packed waiting for the final word, while the bunting was ready in Lewis Street for the welcome home party.
Widdicombe was to have been met off the ship by ministry and naval top brass, "given a good lunch or dinner" before a function involving the Lord Mayor and the press.
"Although the position in which the vessel was sunk was carefully searched, no survivors could be found," says a letter from the Admiralty, expressing great regret.
Cynthia's daughter Sue Irvine, from her second marriage, said nothing had mattered more to her than "seeing my Roy again".
"Even after more than 50 years, mum still became tearful when she recalled the telegram telling her not to go to Liverpool as the Siamese Prince had been torpedoed," she said.
"One other thing I remember her saying is that on the night she was given the news that the Siamese Prince had been sunk she eventually fell asleep but woke very suddenly and, in her words 'Roy was standing at the end of my bed, he was wearing the suit he got married in and he smiled at me. I knew then that he was looking after me.'"
CARRYING A BURDEN
Tapscott stayed in Nassau a little longer before rejoining the war effort with the Canadian Army and the Merchant Navy.
After the war, as now the only Anglo-Saxon survivor, he gave evidence against Helmuth von Ruchteschell, the captain of the Widder, who ordered the shooting of the remaining crew as they escaped in life rafts.
Ruchteschell was sentenced to 10 years in 1947, by a tribunal, as a war criminal and died in custody.
Tapscott returned to Cardiff, he married and had a daughter. But he always carried with him the burden of what happened and suffered depression and symptoms of what would now be recognised as post traumatic stress.
The wartime ordeal was eventually forgotten - at least by the public - and it took him 20 years to even tell those closest to him what had happened.
In 1963, while his wife and daughter were out, he took an overdose of sedatives and a fire started in his home. Despite the rescue efforts of a policeman, he died, aged 42.
Before he took his own life, he wrote a letter to the South Wales Echo newspaper, explaining his actions, which arrived in the editor's office after his death.
To survive was not enough to escape the horrors of war he had experienced.
A LITTLE BOAT AS A REMINDER
The story of the Anglo-Saxon has been told in three books, one in the weeks after the rescue.
Another was by the late explorer and broadcaster Anthony Smith, who helped bring together relatives of those who died to campaign for the return of the jolly boat to Britain.
American maritime historian J Revell Carr, in the most recent book, wrote: "One must stand in awe and contemplate what happened within the space that this boat represents."
The jolly boat was preserved by Carr's museum but was donated to the Imperial War Museum in London in 1998.
A few months before, Cynthia had died but Sue was there to represent her mother when the boat was unveiled as a centrepiece of an exhibition on the merchant navy.
She said Widdicombe's story gave her mother, suffering from dementia, something to cling to from her long-term memory.
"Her last few months were filled with being able to talk about Roy and what happened, whereas her short term memory loss distressed her," she added.
The jolly boat, as a reminder of that incredible journey and the sacrifice of the men of the merchant fleet, is still on display at the Imperial War Museum.
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Nancy Pelosi has made headlines once more after securing a fourth term as Speaker of the House of Representatives. It marks a new chapter in her nearly 50-year political career with the Democrats - and perhaps her greatest challenge yet. | With Kamala Harris about to be the country's first female vice-president, Pelosi can no longer claim the mantle of most powerful woman in US politics.
But the 80-year-old will play a critical role in advancing the agenda of the new president.
That means there's no time to dwell on her personal disappointment over November's election - she takes charge of a shrinking majority in the lower chamber.
And on Sunday, she was only narrowly re-elected as Speaker, following defections from a handful of Democrat colleagues.
Instead, her coming term must demonstrate all the Pelosi qualities that both rally her supporters and alienate her many detractors.
Her legislative acumen, her ability to keep a restless party united when it matters and her instinct for political theatre (more on that sarcastic clap later).
Raised in a political family
Republicans have typically painted Ms Pelosi as a "San Francisco liberal" enamoured with big government and far to the left on social issues.
But her roots are from a more practical style of politics on the other side of the continent.
She grew up in a political family, youngest of seven children in the gritty East Coast city of Baltimore, Maryland, where her father was mayor.
She went to college in nearby Washington where she met and eventually married financier Paul Pelosi.
They first moved to Manhattan, and then San Francisco, where Ms Pelosi started as a housewife.
She had five children - four daughters and a son - in the space of six years.
The start of something big
In 1976 she became involved in politics, using her old family connections to help California Governor Jerry Brown win the Maryland primary as he ran for president.
She then rose through the state's Democratic Party ranks, eventually becoming its chair and then winning a seat in Congress in 1988.
In the House she worked her way up again. Because she represented a portion of the city with a large gay community, she made increasing Aids research funding a priority.
In 2001, she ran for House minority whip, which is vote-counter and second in command of the party in the House, and won a narrow victory.
The next year she moved up to minority leader, which means leading the party in the House but in opposition.
Reaching the top
She was one of the highest-profile, most outspoken opponents of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
This stand was vindicated and paid dividends in 2006 when the Democrats took control of the House for the first time in 12 years.
She was elected by her party to be Speaker of the House, becoming the first woman in that role in US history.
Four years later, Democrats lost control of the lower chamber of Congress.
Despite the setback Ms Pelosi defeated several challenges within her own ranks, to take the gavel once more at the helm of a resurgent party in 2018.
What does a Speaker do?
Speaker of the House is the one congressional job detailed in the US Constitution. It is second in line for the presidency, behind only the vice-president.
Its massive office, in the Capitol rotunda, reflects the prestige of the job, with its own balcony looking out toward the Washington Monument.
The majority party in the House has virtually unfettered control over the legislative process.
The speaker and her deputies and committee chairs determine what bills are considered and voted on. They set the agenda and decide the rules governing debate.
If a speaker can keep her majority in line, the legislative process in the House can purr like a well-tuned machine.
From 2009 to 2011, Pelosi's chamber enacted an $840bn stimulus package in the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse.
She also pushed hard to get the Affordable Care Act, which became the defining battle of the Barack Obama presidency, through the House and on to the president's desk.
Pelosi's biggest moment
She faced very different circumstances when she returned to the speaker's chair in 2018.
By then she was a lightning rod for Republican anger - in their eyes, representing the coastal elites pushing a big-spending, radical platform.
During the 2018 midterms campaign, Republican incumbent David Brat mentioned Nancy Pelosi and her "liberal agenda" 21 times in one debate.
The move backfired for him - and his party - as Democrats swept to a historic win in the House.
But this time she had President Donald Trump as well as the wily Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as obstacles. So any bills her party got through the House didn't go any further.
In viral terms, her big moment was her sarcastic #PelosiClap during Trump's State of the Union speech a month after she took office. It still lives on as a popular gif.
Most controversially 12 months later, she ripped up Trump's speech in front of the TV cameras. Accused of disrespect, she later defended the move, calling his words a "manifesto of mistruths".
Taking on Trump
Pelosi was initially reluctant to lead only the third impeachment of a US president.
But as more emerged in 2019 of Trump's dealings with Ukraine she eventually said it was an abuse of power that could not be ignored.
He was accused of pressing Ukraine to dig up damaging information on Joe Biden, and using military aid as leverage but was acquitted in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Some of those in her own party who were openly calling for her removal in 2018 have since been impressed by the way she has taken on President Trump.
As well as some testy exchanges in the Oval Office, she has scored some big legislative wins against him over the border wall funding and a government shutdown.
A hollow victory
Expectations were high for Democrats to increase their House majority in 2020. But they ended up losing members of Congress instead - more than a dozen net losses.
Given the presence of Donald Trump on the ticket to rally Republicans, it was always optimistic for them to expect to improve on their 2018 landslide.
But the setback will make things harder for Pelosi as she fights a continuous battle to keep the left-wing of her party happy.
The BBC's Anthony Zurcher says this coming term could present her with her biggest political challenge yet.
"She must find a way to cajole her razor-thin majority into continued action, with the hopes that Democrats either take back the Senate on Tuesday or convince a handful of Republican moderates to form a deal-making coalition in Congress.
"Pelosi has been seldom outmanoeuvred in parliamentary procedure and is unrivalled in her ability to keep her party from breaking ranks - either from the left or the middle.
She'll have to keep it up, with little margin for error, if she wants to help Joe Biden get his new administration off to a successful start."
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A man who allegedly called a hospital and said "I hope the staff die of coronavirus" has been charged. | Matthew Wain was arrested at a flat in Perry Barr, Birmingham, on Wednesday in connection with the call to City Hospital, West Midlands Police said.
He is also alleged to have posted a video of the call, entitled "I hope all NHS die", to YouTube.
Mr Wain, 31, was bailed after being charged with sending menacing or offensive communications.
He is due to appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on 29 April.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.
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A 36-year-old man who was previously arrested over the murder of Ian Ogle has been reported to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS). | Police said the man "has been reported to the PPS for the offence of murder".
A 47-year-old woman and a 49-year-old man were arrested on Wednesday by detectives investigating the murder of Mr Ogle.
Both have been reported to the PPS for assisting an offender and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Mr Ogle, 45, died in January after he was stabbed and beaten near his home in Cluan Place off the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast.
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Police speed checks will last for the rest of the year in Jersey after 196 drivers were caught speeding in the past three months.
| Seven motorists were caught driving at more than 70mph with the highest speed recorded at 97.
The maximum speed limit on Jersey's roads is 40mph.
States of Jersey Police have issued a warning that people could face being banned or a fine if they are caught speeding.
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Actor Seth Rogen has become involved in a row with a US film critic who linked his hit comedy Bad Neighbours and the films of Judd Apatow to the killings by 22-year-old Elliot Rodger. | In her Washington Post column Ann Hornaday implied that "outsized frat-boy fantasies" had left Rodger feeling "unjustly shut out of college life".
Rogen hit back on Twitter, calling her words "insulting and misinformed".
Hornaday has now posted a video response to her original column.
"I by no means meant to cast blame on those movies or Judd Apatow's work for this heinous action, obviously not," she said in the film.
"The whole reason that I weighed in on this issue was that [Rodger] had created this video on YouTube that seemed to be such a product of the entertainment industry that he did grow up in."
Rodger - who killed six people in Santa Barbara, California and injured 13 more, before turning the gun on himself - was the son of filmmaker Peter Rodger, assistant director on The Hunger Games.
He had made a YouTube video shortly before the killings, claiming he was being driven to violence after being rejected by women and was going to take his revenge against humanity.
'Idiotic thoughts'
Hornaday angered Rogen and Apatow when her original column posed questions such as: "How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like Bad Neighbours and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of 'sex and fun and pleasure'?"
She continued: "How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, 'It's not fair'?"
Both Rogen and Apatow responded on Twitter, with Rogen writing, "I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed," while Apatow claimed Hornaday was using "tragedy to promote herself with idiotic thoughts."
Rogen also adressed Hornaday: "How dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a lunatic to go on a rampage."
His comedy Bad Neighbours, which co-stars Zac Efron as the leader of a frat house which moves next door to Rogen's family home, topped both the UK and US box office when it was released in cinemas earlier this month.
Writer, director and producer Apatow's films include This is 40, Knocked Up and Pineapple Express.
'Sense of entitlement'
Hornaday attempted to explain the thinking behind her original column in her video and accompanying blog post.
She said Rodgers "self-pitying complaints" in his YouTube video seemed to have a lot to do with "the sense of entitlement that he had to a life that he had seen reflected around him."
"I wanted to sort of tease out how the movies we watch that are primarily created by men and primarily pivot around fantasies of male wish-fulfilment and vigilante justice," said Hornaday.
She continued: "How that might inform not just someone suffering under a terrible mental illness but the culture at large in terms of conditioning our own expectations of what we think life is and what we feel like we deserve from it.
"As important as it is to understand Rodger's actions within the context of the mental illness he clearly suffered, it's just as clear that his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in," she said.
The Washington Post revealed that Rogen had declined a request from the paper to film his own video response for its website.
Related Internet Links
Washington Post
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People living in County Durham will vote on 6 May to elect a police and crime commissioner (PCC) as well as voting in local authority elections. | The vote was due to take place in May last year but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The first Durham PCC was appointed in November 2012.
PCCs are elected as representatives who work to ensure police forces in England and Wales are running effectively.
These are the candidates who have so far said they intend to stand for PCC this year (listed alphabetically):
Joy Allen, Labour
Durham County Council Cabinet member for transformation, culture and tourism.
Anne-Marie Curry, Liberal Democrat
Long-serving councillor for Darlington Borough Council
George Jabbour, Conservative
Businessman who has set up and manages a local charity.
Related Internet Links
Durham Police and Crime Commissioner elections
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A 16-year-old boy has been stabbed to death in Manchester. | He died after an "altercation" involving a number of males armed with weapons on Birchenall Street, Moston, at 19:00 GMT on Thursday.
The teenager, who has not been named, was pronounced dead at the scene, Greater Manchester Police said.
Later that evening, an 18-year-old man went to hospital with apparent stab wound injuries. He was arrested but remains in hospital.
Supt Rebecca Boyce said: "This was a tragic incident and although we have arrested one man, our investigation is still in its early stages.
"Our message to the community still stands and we are urging anyone with information to do the right thing and come forward."
Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [email protected]
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Women in India are not impressed with the response that "it's not all men" when tweeting about allegations of mass molestation in Bangalore, Saudi Arabians condemning those killed in a nightclub have come under fire themselves, and we know it's the first day back at work for many - how's your struggle going? | By Tse Yin LeeBBC News
Why #NotAllMen is infuriating women in India
The hashtag #NotAllMen, tweeted in response to reports of a "mass molestation" of women in Bangalore, India, this weekend, has turned up the temperature in conversations about the alleged incident.
Comments by some political leaders - that "these kind of things do happen" and that it was not right for women to have been out anyway - had already angered many on social media. The use of the hashtag and responses in kind only added fuel to the fire, even if they were made by relatively few people.
"Bangalore incident proved what I have always maintained. No city is safe for women in this country. Indian men, this is on you," said one popular tweet.
One response was this: "Surely not all Indian men. I am sure there are very many decent Indian men out there ma'am." Another: "Yes blame all men bcoz 'ALL RAPIST ARE MEN'. But u can forget that #NotAllMen r rapist."
"Love how men on my TL [timeline] are proud of never molesting/assaulting a woman. Would you like a trophy for not murdering people while we're at it?" asked one user in response.
Others explained, with varying degrees of patience, why such responses infuriated them:
"Saying #NotAllMen makes the conversation about men instead of the epidemic level of violence against women, and that's just wrong," said one post.
"What people (both women and men) need in times of distress is empathy. With #NotAllMen hashtag, men have conveniently run away from it," explained another.
"#NotAllMen? Indeed. But yes all women. ALL women have been molested or assaulted or groped or catcalled at least once. #YESALLWOMEN," said a third.
Are people killed in a nightclub unworthy of prayers?
Some Saudi Arabians think so and have said as much on social media, in reaction to the deaths of seven of their countrymen in a shooting at the Reina nightclub in Turkey.
Although only a minority have voiced such views, they have sparked a heated debate, with many more condemning the response and arguing that prayers to the dead and condolences to their families should be offered regardless of where they were when the attack took place.
"My religion, before it was distorted by the clerics of blood, taught me that the sacredness of the human soul is of a higher value to God than the sacredness of the Kaaba [Islam's holiest site]," said one user.
Feelings ran so high that even a high-profile conservative Saudi cleric was prompted to urge people to leave the judgement of those killed in the attack to God.
Saudi Arabia enforces a puritan version of Sunni Islam, which forbids drinking alcohol or the mingling of men and women outside the family.
In a sign of how strongly such social mores hold sway, some of those defending the people killed in the attack repeated the line many Saudi mainstream media outlets have propagated, saying that the attack took place in a restaurant rather than a nightclub.
Many of the 39 killed in the attack were nationals of Arab countries and such divisions over the victims have echoed in Jordan and Lebanon as well.
One popular writer in Jordan expressed her disgust at such views, saying: "I have never reported anyone even if his/her words were offensive, as I regard this as freedom of speech, but Daeshi [a reference to the so-called Islamic State group] thought is not freedom of speech."
How's your first day #BackToWork?
The phrase is trending worldwide because it is, for most, the first day of the year back at the coalface, after the depravations of the new year break and Christmas - but also because it's being sponsored by British Airways.
Today is never pretty, is it? This cartoon, for many, aptly summarises the past week:
Other memes have also been summoned to convey how people feel this Tuesday, from zombies clawing their way across the ground to the ennui of seals:
And then once you're there in the office, there's all that post-holiday conversation to deal with, as the Twitter account Very British Problems has noted:
If you're really not feeling the office vibe, there are several accounts out there trying to motivate you - from the charity Independent Age's account of what keeps 88-year-old milkman Derek Arch going, to London's mayor Sadiq Khan reminding people that Transport for London fares are frozen till 2020.
All very commendable but we're rather with the writer Paul Bassett Davies: "The only thing worse than people complaining about going back to work is people being cheerful about it."
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Same-sex couples could be able to marry in Guernsey by the summer, a States senior committee member says. | Employment and Social Security Committee Vice President Shane Langlois said the UK Privy Council had given Royal Assent to the local law, passed by the States in 2015.
It will go before the States for final approval before coming into effect.
However, Mr Langlois advised couples against making any arrangements until a commencement date was announced.
The States committed itself to introducing same-sex marriage more than a year ago, voting in December 2015, with support for the plans passing by 37 votes to seven.
Under the legislation, couples will be able to get married in a civil ceremony.
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