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Dumfries and Galloway Council and Stena Line have entered into a partnership with the McKinney Group.
It has agreed to bring forward detailed proposals for the regeneration of the East Pier - owned by Stena Line - for new retail, leisure and housing.
Councillor Colin Smyth said the announcement was "another positive step forward" for the town.
"The council has already invested around £4m to develop Agnew Park, the West Pier and sailing facilities as part of the overall vision for the waterfront," he said.
"The redevelopment of the East Pier through private sector investment is the crucial next step for Stranraer.
"We will also continue discussions with the Scottish government to seek support to enable the plans to become a reality."
Speaking on behalf of Stena Line Ports Ltd, Les Stracey said the company was delighted to have reached a "significant milestone".
Billy McKinney, of the McKinney Group, added: "We are delighted to have entered into an agreement with the partners.
"From the outset we recognised the potential for this project to be transformational for Stranraer and the south west of Scotland.
"We aim to work with Stena Line and the council to bring forward proposals that will match the aspirations of the local community and create new growth opportunities for Stranraer." | A preferred bidder has been selected to take forward a potential £50m Stranraer waterfront investment plan. | 33773576 |
The council gave the go-ahead for the £150m project at East Tullos last week.
The incinerator would be used by Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray councils for non-recyclable waste, to reduce the amount sent to landfill.
Four community councils raised concerns, but the Scottish government said it did not consider the proposal raised issues of national significance.
The project is designed to generate heat that would be used in thousands of nearby homes.
It was given the go-ahead by the full city council - by 23 votes to 14 - despite opposition from campaigners who said it could cause problems with pollution and increase traffic congestion on the already busy Wellington Road.
The plant is due to open in 2021. | A controversial £150m energy from waste plan in Aberdeen will not be called in the Scottish government. | 37642631 |
The IPO is the first this year by a so-called technology "unicorn" - start-ups valued at more than $1bn (£700m).
Twilio's platform that enables developers to incorporate phone calls and text messages into their apps.
Shares were priced at $15 but closed at $28.19, valuing the company at more than $2bn.
Its software is used by companies including OpenTable, WhatsApp and Uber, which uses the technology to withhold the actual mobile numbers of drivers when they call passengers.
The appetite for Twilio shares has revived investors' hopes in the US technology sector.
Analysts believe that its successful debut market could be a positive sign for other "unicorns" looking to go public.
Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank, said: "[This year] has really been an arid desert in new issuance and equity ... I'm encouraged that the success here will spawn other IPOs [initial public offerings]." | Shares in software firm Twilio have soared almost 88% on their first day of trading in New York. | 36609836 |
The woman, in her 20s, was assaulted as she was walking along Rope Walk in Ipswich on 25 February.
Ipswich Crown Court heard George-Hari Constantinescu and Danut Gheorghe, both 30, had prowled the streets for almost an hour before they attacked her.
The pair denied the charge but were found guilty following a trial.
Updates on this story and other Suffolk news
In a statement read at court, the victim said she still has nightmares about the attack and now lives in fear.
Sentencing, Judge Rupert Overbury described the men as "predators" and said their actions were "callous".
He said every woman should be able to "walk in every street, in every town, without the fear of being attacked".
The court heard the men had decided to have sexual activity with a woman "whether or not she accepted" that night.
When their advances had failed in clubs and venues around the town, they then spent 50 minutes trawling Ipswich looking for a young woman, it was heard.
They spotted their victim and "hunted her", attacking her when she was walking along Rope Walk between 03:10 and 03:30 GMT.
Constantinescu and Gheorghe grabbed her, covered her mouth and dragged her into a nearby car park.
They used what the judge described as "unnecessary violence" on the victim, who fell unconscious during the attack which lasted several minutes.
Constantinescu and Gheorghe abandoned her, leaving her half naked and with significant injuries to her face and neck which required hospital treatment.
The court heard they attempted to evade CCTV cameras on their way back into town, and in the days after they attempted to change their appearance and looked at flights to flee the country.
The pair were arrested after Suffolk Constabulary released CCTV images. | Two "predators" who attempted to rape a woman in an attack which left her unconscious have been jailed for 12 years. | 41035610 |
Recent hacked emails are "consistent with the methods and motivation of Russia-directed efforts", the Department of Homeland Security said.
Data revealing discussions within the Democratic Party was hacked earlier this year.
Some states reported "probing" attempts made on "election-related" systems.
However, officials said those attempts could not be directly linked to the Russian government.
Russian officials told Interfax news agency the claims it was involved in the cyber attacks were "nonsense".
But a joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security said high-ranking officials at the Kremlin were almost certainly involved in the successful attacks.
"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," they said.
However, altering any actual ballots or election results would be "extremely difficult", they added, because of a decentralised system and multiple checks and balances.
A number of embarrassing emails have come to light during the 2016 election campaign.
In July, a hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the release of documents from the Democratic Party.
Gigabytes of files including emails and other documents that revealed the inner workings of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were taken.
At an early stage, many US officials linked the breach to Russia. At the time, Moscow denied any involvement and denounced the "poisonous anti-Russian" rhetoric from Washington.
The leaked emails appeared to show that Democratic Party officials were biased against Bernie Sanders in his primary race against Mrs Clinton.
The hack led to the resignation of the party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and sparked protests at the national convention in Philadelphia.
Adam Schiff, a senior member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said he applauded the decision to publicly name Russia as the culprit.
"All of us should be gravely concerned when a foreign power like Russia seeks to undermine our democratic institutions," he said.
He called for co-operation with "our European allies" to develop a response. | US officials have formally accused Russia of cyber attacks against political organisations in order "to interfere with the US election". | 37592684 |
Two-man teams from 16 different nations will compete at St Albans' Centurion Club on 6-7 May for a prize fund of one million euros (£852,000).
There will be amphitheatre-style stands around the tees plus music and pyrotechnics.
Players will wear microphones and be encouraged to interact with fans.
Tour chief executive Keith Pelley said the Tour was keen to "emulate" the Ryder Cup atmosphere.
"We have said for some time that golf needs to modernise and introducing innovative new formats is a major part of achieving that," he said.
"We want to broaden the appeal of our sport to the millennial demographic and I think this format will do that."
The teams will be split into four groups of four teams on day one, with the top two from each group progressing to the knockout stages.
The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final - and a play-off for third place - will be contested on day two.
Matches will be played in a greensomes, match-play format, with both players in a team hitting tee shots on each hole. After selecting the best tee shot, the players take alternate shots until the hole is completed.
One point is awarded for each hole won, with the winner being the team with the most points after six holes.
Countries will be represented by their leading ranked and available European Tour member as of 13 March, who will then choose a team-mate. | The European Tour has announced a six-hole team event called GolfSixes, in its attempts to "modernise" and "broaden the appeal" of the sport. | 38951040 |
The Battle, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, lasted from 31 July until November 1917, and led to the death, disappearance or wounding of 500,000 Allied and German soldiers.
Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British army commander in Afghanistan, shared his tribute to his great uncle Second lieutenant Philip Duncan, who was killed in the battle.
2nd Lt Philip Duncan was killed in action near Poelcapelle in Belgium during the Second Battle of Passchendaele on 30 October 1917 at the age of 26.
He died leading his men in battle just 21 days after joining his battalion on the Western Front.
Matt Pitcher remembered his great-grandfather, Sergeant William John Timbley, fought in the battle and survived to tell his story.
Matt told the BBC his great-grandfather was a career solider with the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards. He turned 38 a month before the first battle of Passchendaele and saw action in the Boesinghe sector in Poelcapelle.
Before he fought in the battle, he was one of just 200 men who survived the first Battle of Ypres in 1914. After the war, he didn't speak of his time in the army.
Sam Barnett's also posted about his great-grandfather, Private Maurice Walter Barnett, who was killed in the opening attack of the battle on 31 July 1917.
Private Barnett served in the 12th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment after a spell at the 9th Battalion. "It is hard to imagine what he went through, surviving Boar's Head and the Battle of the Somme," said Sam.
"It's easy for us to think of the casualties as just numbers of soldiers but, to Walter, they would have been his local shopkeepers, neighbours, and friends."
Russell Craig tweeted an image in remembrance of his great uncle, Private James Kelly, who was killed in the battle on 16 August 1917.
Kelly was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1897. He attempted to sign up for service with local military units, but he was rejected so he went to Randalstown in Ireland to enlist with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
His body was never recovered. His name is commemorated in Tyne Cot Cemetery alongside 35,000 other missing soldiers.
Paul Brown shared the story of his great-grandfather, Richardson Robson Flinn. He served with the Northumberland Fusiliers Labour Corps in 1914, then aged 22.
He was gassed during fighting in 1915 and recuperated in Britain before going back to the frontline at Passchendaele.
"Richardson made it almost to the German lines before being felled by gunfire, and lay wounded in a shell hole," said Paul.
"Once the initial chaos had subsided, German officers emerged waving red cross flags. One German gave Richardson some water from his canteen. Eventually, the wounded from both sides were evacuated.
"Richardson was discharged in December 1917 with a disability shot wound, although it was the gas that had done the worst damage.
"He returned home, but never fully recovered his health, and died young. Unfortunately, none of his living relatives ever got the chance to know him."
Twitter user @DaveVForce shared his memory of his distant cousin who was killed in the battle.
Gunner William Potterton enlisted for service on 11 July 1916 and served with the 72nd battery Royal Field Artillery.
He was killed in action on 19 October 1917. He has no known grave and his memory is also commemorated at the Tyne Cot Cemetery.
Complied by Paul Harrison, UGC and Social news team | The centenary of the the Battle of Passchendale has been marked by those on social media with tributes to family who fought and died at Passchendale. | 40774469 |
The Hampshire County Men's Final between Southsea Waverley and Boscombe Cliff was held in Southampton on Sunday.
A Boscombe player squared up to an opponent after a dispute over "bowls etiquette", reports the Bournemouth Echo.
Other Boscombe players then conceded.
It meant Waverley retained the men's county champions title.
Waverley secretary Peter Aldridge said both clubs were "mortified by the behaviour".
He said he had been told by members who were present that the player, in his 30s, was hurt after the argument blew up during the final and a headbutt was attempted.
Mr Aldridge said: "Bowls has changed over the years - people do get excited but this was not acceptable.
"It doesn't represent the attitude of Boscombe Cliff and is not representative of the game."
Boscombe Cliff Bowls Club has declined to comment.
The sport's governing body in the county, Bowls Hampshire, confirmed there was an incident which resulted in a Boscombe player being "asked to leave the green" and the team conceding the match.
Secretary Spencer Kerley said: "I am awaiting statements from the two clubs and from the county officers that were present before inviting the county to consider what further action may be necessary."
A Hampshire Constabulary spokeswoman said it had not been reported to police. | A county bowls final was abandoned after an argument erupted when a player appeared to headbutt an opponent, who fell and broke a finger. | 40876288 |
The 36-year-old is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court after a gun was fired in Dalkeith in the early hours of Sunday morning.
No-one was injured and police said it did not appear any damage was caused to the property on Woodburn Road.
Searches took place on Meadowfield Terrace in Edinburgh and Kippielaw Steading in Dalkeith on Monday in connection with the investigation.
A firearm has since been recovered.
Ch Insp Kenny Simpson, of Police Scotland, said: "I want to stress this was an isolated incident and we are not looking for anyone else as part of this investigation.
"Nevertheless, we fully appreciate the impact this had on the local community and extensive inquiries were launched along with dedicated high-visibility patrols.
"A swift arrest has now been made and I want to thank residents for their assistance and support.
"Offences involving firearms will not be tolerated and should such crimes occur we will use all resources at our disposal to bring anyone found to be involved to justice." | A man has been charged after a firearm was discharged in Midlothian. | 40340131 |
An Icelandic court found him guilty of market manipulation in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis.
"This sentence is a big surprise to me as I did not nothing wrong," Sigurjon Arnason told Reuters.
The former chief executives of Iceland's two other big banks, Glitnir and Kaupthing, have already received jail sentences.
The three banks imploded in 2008 after acquiring assets worth approximately 10 times the size of Iceland's economy.
A Reykjavik court said that nine months of Mr Arnason's sentence would be suspended.
Two of his colleagues - Ivar Gudjonsson, a former director of proprietary trading, and Julius Heidarsson, a banker - were also convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison, of which six months would be suspended.
Unlike other Western countries, Iceland has pursued prison sentences for the chief executives and others who were involved in the 2008 financial crisis.
Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, the former chief executive of Kaupthing - formerly Iceland's largest bank - received a jail sentence of five and a half years - the heaviest sentence for financial fraud in Iceland's history.
The country's former prime minister, Geir Haarde, was also found guilty of negligence leading up to the crisis but was not given a jail term. | Former Landsbanki boss Sigurjon Arnason has been sentenced to 12 months in prison. | 30121591 |
Christie, 20, signed from Inverness Caledonian Thistle in September, and featured from the bench against his former side on Saturday.
"Because it's such a big squad, there's so much competition, it's going to be frustrating at times," he said.
"But I think over a long period, the players that keep working hard will eventually get success in the team."
It is an altogether different dynamic than that which faced the midfielder in the Highlands, where he proved one of John Hughes' pivotal players.
"That was one of the things I thought about when I moved," Christie told BBC Scotland. "I wasn't going to be straight into the starting 11; I had to almost start from scratch again.
"But I'm delighted I've eventually started making appearances on the park."
Celtic recovered from a shaky first half at Parkhead to put Caley Thistle to the sword 3-0 after the break
"It was very strange playing against old team mates," said Christie. "Nice to see them again and I wish them all the best in the future. I spent many good years at Inverness, but it's time to move on now.
"First half, fair credit to Inverness, I think they passed the ball excellently and shocked us a bit. We regrouped a bit at half-time and showed we were definitely the better team.
"I think in front of goal we were more clinical, which can prove vital in these games." | Ryan Christie concedes Celtic's sizeable posse of midfielders is going to limit his game time. | 35623366 |
At countless UN climate meetings, Mr De Brum was a passionate champion of the rights of small island states.
He was instrumental in securing the "high ambition coalition" of rich and poor countries that was pivotal to a deal in the French capital.
Mr De Brum died at his home in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands.
Born near the end of WWII, Mr De Brum grew up in an era when the tiny Pacific state was being used to host a number of US nuclear bomb tests.
When he was nine years old he witnessed one such detonation, while fishing with his grandfather around 200 miles away.
The resulting destruction of the atolls, the evacuation of many islanders as a result of the atomic tests became a hotly contested political issue. The islander's push for independence and compensation played a large part in Tony De Brum's political awakening.
As one of the Islands' first university graduates, Mr De Brum was heavily involved in the negotiations with the US that resulted in an agreement on independence and compensation signed in 1986.
However it was the threat of rising seas and a changing climate became the key issues of his time as a Marshall Islands foreign minister.
In the Paris climate negotiations, his warm, personal and relaxed style was very much in contrast to the stiffer, greyer faces of some teams.
He used his charm to build strong personal relationships with many of the political leaders from rich and poor countries alike.
This helped create the "coalition of high ambition," a group that ultimately involved around 100 nations, including the US, the EU, African, Caribbean and island states.
This alliance of rich and poor proved critical in pushing the deal through.
The biggest win from Mr De Brum's perspective, was that the Paris agreement committed to the goal of keeping global temperature increases close to 1.5C - "1.5 to stay alive," was a phrase often used by Mr De Brum.
Tributes to the former minister have been led by the Marshall Islands' President Hilda Heine.
"The very existence of the Paris Climate Agreement owes a lot to Tony De Brum," she wrote in a statement.
"He was a giant of history, a legend in every meaning of the world and a custodian of our shared future."
Others took to Twitter to extend their sympathies.
End of Twitter post by @CFigueres
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End of Twitter post by @billmckibben | Former Marshall Islands foreign minister Tony De Brum, who played a key role in securing the Paris climate pact has passed away aged 72. | 41014093 |
The journals were written by sailors on board HMS Trincomalee, which is berthed in Hartlepool.
The vessel, built in 1817, is being incorporated into the new National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).
The journals have been sitting in Royal Navy archives in Portsmouth for the past 150 years.
Built in India in 1817, HMS Trincomalee was brought to Hartlepool in 1987, where it took more than 10 years to restore. It is now the main attraction at Hartlepool's Maritime Experience and attracts 54,000 visitors a year.
Bryn Hughes, general manager of the HMS Trincomalee Trust said: "The positive links with the NMRN in Portsmouth will heighten public awareness of HMS Trincomalee.
"It is a wonderful long-term scheme following hard on the profile of the recent Tall Ships Races so successfully staged in Hartlepool."
The rarely seen journals will eventually be included in the static Trincomalee exhibition in Hartlepool.
One journal dates from 1852 and was kept by midshipman William Dawson. It contains a detailed log and tracking maps of the journeys that HMS Trincomalee took during that period.
Dr Dominic Tweddle, director general of the NMRN, said: "The opportunity to welcome HMS Trincomalee as a part of the museum means that the story of the Royal Navy, its ships and its people can now be told on a national scale."
HMS Trincomalee was built for the Admiralty in Bombay and served in the West Indies and the Pacific.
It was stationed in West Hartlepool between 1862 and 1877 as a training ship. | Crew diaries which had been locked away for 150 years are being reunited with Britain's oldest surviving warship at a special ceremony on Teesside. | 11387984 |
5 April 2017 Last updated at 17:31 BST
It is being fought between soldiers who support the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and different groups of fighters known as rebels, who don't want him to be in power anymore.
This week, world leaders have been reacting in shock after what's believed to be a chemical weapons attack happened there - killing at least 72 people.
The UK, a rebel commander and a weapons expert all said the evidence pointed to an attack by Syrian government forces.
The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which is backed by Russia, denies its forces launched a chemical weapons attack.
Watch Jenny's report to find out what exactly chemical weapons are. | The war in Syria has gone on for more than six years and has claimed the lives of more than a quarter of a million people. | 39508312 |
He has been shortlisted for the children's book award for The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which follows the lives of a group of teenagers.
Francis Hardinge, who won the Costa Book of the Year award for The Lie Tree, is also shortlisted.
Three illustrators are also in with a chance of winning the Kate Greenaway Medal for a record third time.
Children's Laureate Chris Riddell, former Children's Laureate Anthony Browne and Helen Oxenbury - who first won the award for outstanding illustration in a book for children in 1969 - have all made the shortlist, which is dominated by traditional picture books this year.
Browne first won the medal in 1983, while Riddell won for the first time in 2001.
Hardinge's Victorian murder mystery joins Lies We Tell Ourselves, author Robin Talley's first book which tells of two teenage girls falling in love across the race divide in 1950s America.
Sarah Crossan's One, about conjoined twins; Marcus Sedgwick's The Ghosts of Heaven, which looks at the search for the true meaning of life; Jenny Valentine's Fire Colour One, which looks at issues of authenticity and honesty; Kate Saunders's Five Children on the Western Front, about the impact of war on a family; and Nick Lake's There Will Be Lies, which sees a young girl reassessing her identity, make up the shortlist.
Sioned Jacques, chair of the judging panel for both awards, said: "These exceptionally strong shortlists reflect the huge range of writing and illustrating talent in children's publishing at the moment.
"The lists are a true celebration of the longevity of these wonderful talents, with Helen Oxenbury and Anthony Browne showing that they are still delivering incredible work decades after first winning a medal."
• One by Sarah Crossan
• The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
• There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake
• The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
• Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders
• The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick
• Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
• Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine
• Willy's Stories illustrated and written by Anthony Browne
• There's a Bear on My Chair illustrated and written by Ross Collins
• Once Upon an Alphabet illustrated and written by Oliver Jeffers
• Sam & Dave Dig a Hole illustrated by Jon Klassen, written by Mac Barnett
• Something About a Bear illustrated and written by Jackie Morris
• Captain Jack and the Pirates illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, written by Peter Bently
• The Sleeper and the Spindle illustrated by Chris Riddell, written by Neil Gaiman
• Footpath Flowers illustrated by Sydney Smith, written by JonArno Lawson
CILIP president Dawn Finch said: "We are without doubt in a golden age of children's books. From stories set in Victorian times and World War One to a modern day library, from fantasy worlds to the future, these shortlists showcase the enormous talent and unlimited imagination currently to be found in children's storytelling."
The winners for the two medals will be announced on 20 June at the British Library.
The Kate Greenaway Medal winner has been awarded the £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize since 2000 - this year, the Carnegie Medal winner will also be awarded the same amount, from the same fund.
One title from each shortlist will also win the Amnesty CILIP honour, which is a new commendation for a book which celebrates freedom. | Author Patrick Ness is in the running to become the first author to win the Carnegie Medal three times. | 35815369 |
14 March 2016 Last updated at 15:10 GMT
More than 30,000 local and international artists performed at the event.
Produced by Vikas Pandey, filmed and edited by Devashish Kumar | More than 3.5 million people have reportedly attended the World Cultural Festival in Delhi, in what organisers are calling the world's largest cultural gathering. | 35802823 |
The duo were among seven Cameroon players who said they did not want to play in the tournament, which starts in Gabon on 14 January.
They could have been banned from club football during the competition.
But a potential club versus country row has been defused by their non-selection in the final squad.
Cameroon, who are coached by Belgian Hugo Broos, have been drawn in Group A with hosts Gabon, Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau.
Right-back Nyom told Broos he wanted to stay at West Brom to keep his place in the team.
Bournemouth striker Benik Afobe has also withdrawn from DR Congo's squad.
Full Cameroon squad: Ondoa, Goda, Mbokwe, Mabouka, Nkoulou, Oyongo, Djeitei, Collins, Ngadeu Ngadjui, Teikeu, Ngwem, Siani, Mandjeck, Djoum, Boya, Aboubakar, Moukandjo, Zoua, Salli, Toko-Ekambi, Njie ,Ndip Tambe, Bassogog. | Liverpool defender Joel Matip and West Brom's Allan Nyom have not been named in Cameroon's 23-man squad for this month's Africa Cup of Nations. | 38499968 |
Officers have been searching for the 36-year-old, from Petworth in West Sussex, since 22:00 BST on Thursday.
Ms Weeks, who is known for her role in the ITV drama, was last seen an hour earlier 14 miles away in Chichester.
Sussex Police said they were concerned for her welfare and it was unlike her not to get in touch. She had recently told family and friends she was feeling anxious.
Det Kate Wilt said: "If you read this Honeysuckle, please get in touch to let us know you are ok.
"Although she travels around a lot and has links in London and has family in Wiltshire, it is unlike her not to be in touch with family."
Earlier this year the actress was reportedly ordered to wear an electronic tag after she was caught speeding on the A3 in south-west London in August 2015.
A child in the back seat was not wearing a proper seat belt and it emerged she was already banned from driving.
Her agency The Artists Partnership said it was currently "unable to get hold of Honeysuckle".
She recently finished work on shooting Lewis for ITV and a Sky mystery The Five.
As well as starring as Samantha Stewart in drama Foyle's War, she has also appeared in The Bill, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and Death In Paradise.
The Cardiff-born actress is described as around 5ft 4in (1.62m) with cropped gingery blonde hair.
She was last seen wearing a blue anorak and faded blue jeans. | Foyle's War actress Honeysuckle Weeks has gone missing, police have said. | 36926726 |
The group of boys and girls, aged between 11 and 14, were reported missing after failing to return to the Carrbridge area.
A Coastguard helicopter found the group waving and flashing lights at a remote bothy.
As the helicopter crew approached them, one of the group asked: "Are we in trouble."
The scouts were on a practice hike for an award, with adult supervisors waiting for them to return.
When the got lost, they made their way to a remote bothy on the River Dulnain, seven miles from their original camp at Sluggan Bridge.
They had lit a fire inside the building to keep warm when it turned dark and the weather began to get colder.
Aircraft captain Simon Hammock said: "They had travelled a significant distance across uneven ground, and as the weather deteriorated had elected to seek shelter in a bothy.
"Their scouting training had been put to good use and had ultimately ensured their safety."
He added: "When we returned them to their camp they were met with open arms by the other cubs and scouts. A great result."
The scouts were airlifted back to Sluggan Bridge.
The alarm had been raised by the rest of the group at about 18:45 when they failed to return and they were found at about 20:40.
Insp Mike Middlehurst, of Police Scotland, said: "This was a very well co-ordinated operation and we are very grateful to our partners, especially Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team and the local estate staff, whose local knowledge and expertise helped locate the children quickly and safely.
"The group was well equipped with maps, food and water and thankfully they did the right thing by seeking shelter in the bothy which helped with finding them." | Eight scouts were rescued by helicopter after taking a wrong turn while trekking in the Cairngorms. | 40903712 |
The fee will also apply to UK-based lorries - but this will be offset by an equivalent cut in vehicle excise duty.
The move is designed to create a "level playing field" for British lorry drivers, as they have to pay for using roads in Europe.
The AA said it was concerned the system could lead to a universal road charging scheme for all motorists.
The government will publish draft legislation next month and ministers said the charge would be brought in by the end of the current parliament at the latest.
The amount of the charge would depend on the size of the vehicle and is expected to raise a total of £20m a year.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: "These proposals will deliver a vital shot in the arm to the UK haulage industry.
"It is simply not right that foreign lorries do not pay to use our roads, when our trucks invariably have to fork out when travelling to the continent.
"By introducing charges we will create a level playing field, increasing UK competitiveness and boosting growth."
British hauliers who operate in Europe face a variety of road tolls and charges while continental lorries can use British roads for free.
Road Haulage Association chief executive Geoff Dunning said it was a "happy day" for the industry.
"We have been campaigning for years to see a system introduced which will lessen the financial advantage currently enjoyed by our European neighbours," he said.
"UK hauliers travelling to mainland Europe have to pay road charges but foreign-registered vehicles travelling to the UK pay nothing." | Foreign lorries are to be charged up to £1,000 a year to use British roads - in a bid to benefit domestic hauliers. | 19614862 |
3 February 2017 Last updated at 17:45 GMT
Coral reefs are big underwater structures. They are made of coral, which is a bit like rock but is actually living, like trees and plants.
They're normally found in bright, clear water, like the Great Barrier Reef near Australia, so finding one in the muddy Amazon was a big surprise!
As well as being beautiful, reefs are very important, because different types of fish and underwater animals live there.
Scientists have been using mini-submarines to explore the reef, and they're hoping to find new species.
Greenpeace, who are a group who campaign to protect the environment, say that it's important to look after the reef.
Footage courtesy of Greenpeace. | A coral reef, larger than the size of London, has been discovered for the first time, in the Amazon river, in Brazil. | 38861704 |
Smith feels the Scottish Professional Football League should exert some influence with main sponsor Ladbrokes.
The former Aberdeen boss, who is the head of the Scottish League Managers Association, was speaking after Ian Baraclough's departure from Motherwell.
"The game needs investment and finance to improve, so I'm sure nothing will change," he said.
"I would ask bookmakers to take into consideration the people on the receiving end of it and try a different approach to take that undignified element away from it.
"I will bring the matter up at the next meeting with the league but I'm pretty sure they will say that there is little they can do about it."
The SPFL said such betting activity was "nothing new".
Smith, a player in the 1950s and 60s, began his managerial career at Stenhousemuir before spells in charge of Stirling Albion, St Mirren, Aberdeen, Clyde, Dundee United and Ross County.
Motherwell and Baraclough parted company on Wednesday with the Steelmen third bottom of the Scottish Premiership and having been knocked out of the Scottish League Cup by Greenock Morton on Tuesday.
Odds on how likely each Premiership manager was to be dismissed were publicised earlier in the week.
"The market offering the odds on the next manager to leave a club is nothing new and indeed existed a long time prior to the SPFL welcoming Ladbrokes as its title sponsor," said an SPFL spokesman.
"This sponsorship received unanimous approval from member clubs in June. Clubs all across the world have their own in-house agreements with bookmakers who promote similar offers."
Meanwhile, Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald does not foresee an end to bets on manager sackings.
"It's just the way it is," he told BBC Scotland. "I don't think there's any way they'll change it."
Thistle are still looking for their first win of the season and have failed to score in eight of their nine matches but Archibald claims he does not look at the bookmakers' odds on him losing his job.
"There's no point," he explained. "I don't think you'd sleep at night if you worried about things like that.
"It's just the nature of the beast. That's the game we're in always knowing that's what happens.
"Every manager knows if you don't start well you'll be under pressure." | Falkirk director Alex Smith wants to see an end to bookmakers taking bets on which manager will be sacked next. | 34349607 |
The party said Geoffrey Clark, who is standing for Kent County Council, would not be a UKIP councillor if elected.
Mr Clark said on his website he did not endorse the abortion idea but suggested it to cut the national debt.
Learning disability charity Mencap said it was disgusted and horrified at Mr Clark's personal manifesto.
UKIP said Thursday's ballot paper would still list him as its candidate but, pending an investigation, he would not be a UKIP councillor.
Chartered accountant Mr Clark, 66, who is also standing for Meopham North ward on Gravesham Borough Council in Thursday's by-election, says on his website his comments are personal and do not reflect UKIP policy.
He calls for a national debate and an urgent government review of the NHS, which he says "risks becoming unaffordable in the future".
The review should look at "compulsory abortion when the foetus is detected as having Down's, spina bifida or similar syndrome which, if it is born, could render the child a burden on the state as well as on the family".
He says the review should also look at medical treatment for those aged over 80, "which is disproportionately costly to the NHS" and might also include "legalising euthanasia and giving free euthanasia advice to all folk over 80".
He told the BBC: "I don't intend to offend.
"What I am trying to do is to provoke a debate in the nation because I am so disenchanted with our politicians."
Mark Goldring, chief executive of Mencap, said: "Much has been written about the Paralympics this summer changing attitudes towards disabled people for the better.
"Yet in the very same year, a council candidate has proposed forced eugenics against disabled people.
"It is abhorrent that Geoffrey Clark sees disabled people solely as a burden when people with a learning disability lead full lives and make valuable contributions to their communities and families.
"We question if he is fit for public office."
Mr Clark, who describes himself as a member of Meopham Parochial Church Council, Rotary International, the Royal British Legion and the Youth Hostels Association, says population, immigration and threats to the green belt are linked issues close to his heart.
If elected, he promises to promote the Christian ethic and British culture, roll back Islam, contain UK population growth and restrict immigration.
A UKIP spokesman said the party rejected Mr Clark's "abhorrent" views.
"The party was not aware of these views when it allowed him to stand under our name," he said.
"Mr Clark has been formally suspended as a UKIP candidate and will not be standing for the party again.
"We would like to apologise to anyone who has suffered distress as a result of this matter." | A UKIP candidate who called for an NHS review to look at compulsory abortion of foetuses with Down's syndrome or spina bifida has been suspended. | 20773800 |
He said he supports devolution but is "not enthusiastic" about further powers coming to Wales.
Speaking on BBC's The Wales Report programme, Mr Gill said the assembly's current powers have been "badly used".
He also said local parties will decide who represents UKIP in May's Welsh assembly election.
Mr Gill was responding to suggestions that former Tory MPs Neil Hamilton and Mark Reckless were set to be imposed as candidates by the party centrally.
"As a principle, I think that it's madness to have people standing who the local party don't want to stand for them.
"Which is why the local party will now decide who represents them," he said.
He said the upcoming elections give the party a chance to show they can be disciplined and do "good things for the people of Wales".
"We want to be a constructive part of the assembly," he added.
"We want to be there to get the voices and the views of those people who vote for us heard and we need to make sure that people start to believe in this institution for the right reasons." | UKIP wants to be a "constructive part of the assembly" and can do "good things", Welsh leader Nathan Gill has said. | 35545608 |
Willie Cameron, who runs a range of hospitality businesses in the Highlands, believes the fact that the pound tanked against the Euro following the EU referendum has benefited the sector in the short-term.
But its long-term repercussions are more uncertain.
A recent survey suggested that more than a quarter of EU nationals - normally the most loyal and lucrative visitors - would be less likely to holiday here because of the vote to leave.
Mr Cameron said: "In the short term it's extremely good as far as the tourism industry is concerned.
"However, in the long term we don't know what's going to happen and this is where the big question mark regarding tourism generally is concerned - we're entering very, very uncertain times."
Any potential investment in the industry is being "put on the back burner", he added.
"There are no decisions being made, there's no indication of decisions being made, it is very worrying."
Part of that uncertainty surrounds the attitude of potential EU visitors. Would they really turn their backs on the UK as a holiday destination as a recent poll suggests?
Simon Calder, travel editor of The Independent, said: "It is not unreasonable for people on the continent to feel a bit miffed with the result of the EU vote.
"Effectively we were saying, 'We don't want to play' and therefore, of course, there will be a number of people who will say, 'Right, well if you don't want to be part of our great economic experiment, then we don't want to come on holiday to your country'.
"I think a bigger worry, actually, are people who will infer for some reason - maybe all the rhetoric that was going on at the time of the referendum - that somehow they'll need a visa to come to Scotland.
"It's very unlikely that the traditional Scottish markets will need that but it might deter some people."
The numbers of tourists coming to Scotland's shores is just one side of the coin.
Increasingly, the staff serving them in the cafes and making the beds in the hotels are from other EU states, especially eastern and central Europe.
Restaurant worker Erik Harrmann, from the Czech Republic, said he was shocked and baffled by the Brexit vote.
"I was surprised. We all thought that Britain would remain. Yes, it was like shock for us, for all of us," he said.
His colleague, Julie Barbusinova, added: "I was so sad. Everybody was sad in work."
Many observers reckon foreign seasonal workers are the backbone of the tourist industry here.
George Stone runs a programme which has brought hundreds into the Highlands in recent years and he has real concerns about what might happen if there is a hard-line approach to such immigration.
"They form a huge part of the workforce in the hotels," he said.
"And it's not just in the unskilled jobs that don't require a language, but the waitresses and, to an increasing extent, the people in the kitchen, not just washing the dishes but preparing the meals, are coming from Europe, particularly the central European countries.
"There are going to be two sets of losers. First of all, the young, dynamic people from places like the Czech Republic but also my friends, the hotel owners and managers here in the north of Scotland.
"It will be difficult for them to replace the staff from other sources."
The Scottish tourist trade is just one sector still trying to find out what exactly Brexit will mean for them. | Hotels, restaurants and historic attractions in the north of Scotland have just enjoyed a bumper season - but there is uncertainty about the future of the tourism industry following the Brexit vote. | 37258984 |
The prescriptions could provide free visits to national parks or gardening sessions at National Trust properties, for example.
A small number of GPs already do this.
The LGA says it needs to become universal policy to tackle the nation's obesity crisis.
It's calling on NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups to drive the initiative forward.
In Dorset, doctors already prescribe walks, conservation work, gardening and sailing.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council has developed an IT system which links up GPs with leisure centres so they can book patients directly on to exercise plans.
The LGA, which took on responsibility for public health under the recent NHS shake-up, says exercise prescriptions would encourage people to be more active, lose weight and keep fit.
Spokeswoman Izzi Seccombe said: "There are some instances where rather than prescribing a pill, advising on some type of moderate physical activity outdoors could be far more beneficial to the patient.
"There are already some good examples where this is being piloted in the UK and it is something we should consider on a nationwide basis."
The Royal College of General Practitioners said any decision to invest in social prescribing schemes, and roll them out more widely, must not be an alternative to investing in general practice services.
Spokesman Dr Steve Mowle said: "Social prescribing schemes can certainly be beneficial to a patient's overall health and wellbeing - as some pilots have shown - but to be effective, there needs to be better integration between health and community services, so that GPs and our teams can signpost our patients most appropriately."
One in four women and one in five men in England do less than 30 minutes of moderate physical activity per week - way below the recommended amount of 150 minutes per week.
Physical activity can help to prevent and manage over 20 chronic conditions and diseases, including some cancers, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and depression.
People who do regular physical activity have:
Source: NHS Choices | Doctors in England and Wales should offer overweight patients "green space" prescriptions to get them exercising outdoors, says the Local Government Association. | 37274562 |
Five-month-old Jack McLaren, from Newbury in Berkshire, died in hospital on 4 June, two days after an alleged attack.
Daniel McLaren, of Fleetwood Close in Newbury, has been charged with murder. He appeared at Reading Crown Court via video link from prison earlier and entered a not guilty plea.
A trial has been scheduled to begin on 22 January 2018. | A 29-year-old man has denied murdering his baby son. | 40828068 |
Media playback is not supported on this device
Evans went close for Chesterfield early on before the visitors went ahead midway through the first half when Jay O'Shea calmly slotted in from close range from Kristian Dennis' threaded pass.
Sam Walker pushed away O'Shea's low effort soon after, but Kurtis Guthrie's diving header flashed inches wide and Drey Wright was denied by keeper Ryan Fulton.
Colchester needed just 53 seconds to equalise after the interval when substitute Tarique Fosu netted with his first touch after coming on with a low finish, after the ball had broken to him in the area.
Colchester captain Luke Prosser's header from Wright's corner then rattled the bar.
But Chesterfield restored their advantage six minutes into the second half through Evans, who emphatically volleyed home after Tom Anderson had nodded on a free-kick in the area.
Guthrie was later denied by Fulton but Chesterfield claimed a narrow victory.
Report supplied by the Press Association.
Match ends, Colchester United 1, Chesterfield 2.
Second Half ends, Colchester United 1, Chesterfield 2.
Richard Brindley (Colchester United) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Jay O'Shea (Chesterfield).
Foul by Richard Brindley (Colchester United).
Ched Evans (Chesterfield) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt saved. Macauley Bonne (Colchester United) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top right corner.
Luke Prosser (Colchester United) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Ched Evans (Chesterfield).
Ched Evans (Chesterfield) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Denny Johnstone (Colchester United).
Substitution, Colchester United. Louis Dunne replaces Alex Wynter.
Macauley Bonne (Colchester United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Connor Dimaio (Chesterfield).
Attempt saved. Macauley Bonne (Colchester United) right footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.
Foul by Kurtis Guthrie (Colchester United).
Gboly Ariyibi (Chesterfield) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Luke Prosser (Colchester United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Tom Anderson (Chesterfield).
Corner, Chesterfield. Conceded by Alex Wynter.
Substitution, Chesterfield. Liam Graham replaces Kristian Dennis.
Substitution, Colchester United. Macauley Bonne replaces Sammie Szmodics.
Foul by Gary Liddle (Chesterfield).
Tarique Fosu-Henry (Colchester United) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Dion Donohue (Chesterfield) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Kurtis Guthrie (Colchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Kurtis Guthrie (Colchester United).
Attempt blocked. Craig Slater (Colchester United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Foul by Connor Dimaio (Chesterfield).
Richard Brindley (Colchester United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Gary Liddle (Chesterfield).
Tarique Fosu-Henry (Colchester United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Delay in match Ched Evans (Chesterfield) because of an injury.
Ched Evans (Chesterfield) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Alex Wynter (Colchester United).
Substitution, Chesterfield. Jon Nolan replaces Liam O'Neil because of an injury.
Attempt missed. Kristian Dennis (Chesterfield) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left.
Attempt blocked. Kristian Dennis (Chesterfield) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Attempt saved. Kurtis Guthrie (Colchester United) right footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Gboly Ariyibi (Chesterfield) wins a free kick in the attacking half. | Ched Evans grabbed the winner as Chesterfield ended their long run without a victory by triumphing at Colchester United in the FA Cup first round. | 37807180 |
Malcolm Roberts, from the far-right party One Nation, said he was "very confident" he could prove he was not a dual citizen.
Under Australia's constitution, a person cannot run for federal office if they hold dual or plural citizenship.
Three politicians have quit as a row over dual citizenship has intensified.
The Queensland senator, who was born in India to a Welsh father, said he never believed he was British citizen.
Speaking in a television interview with Sky News, Senator Roberts said he contacted British authorities days before the cut-off for candidate nominations.
He said he wrote three times to British authorities saying: "I believe I am not a British and just in case though, if I am, then I renounce it effective immediately."
Senator Roberts said he received formal registration of his status from British authorities on December 5, 2016 - five months after the federal election.
"I've taken all steps that I reasonably believe necessary," Senator Roberts told Sky News.
The senator has previously confirmed on social media that he was not an Indian citizen.
"I am a citizen only of Australia and therefore eligible to hold the position as Senator in the Australian parliament," he said on Facebook.
The politician has been under pressure to reveal his status following the resignation of two deputy Greens leaders, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, who were both dual nationals.
This week, Matthew Canavan also quit as Australia's Minister for Resources and Northern Australia because he faces legal questions over his Italian citizenship.
The Section 44 (Disqualification) states that any person who "is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power... shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives".
This is interpreted by the High Court of Australia as meaning that persons with dual citizenship are not permitted to run for office.
Yes. Dual nationals cannot be elected to parliament in Armenia, Egypt or the Philippines.
In Israel, a person must renounce his or her other citizenship to be sworn is as a member of Knesset (parliament).
In New Zealand, serving lawmakers run the risk of losing their seat if they renew non-New Zealand passports. | An Australian senator has revealed he renounced his UK citizenship, but it wasn't confirmed until after he was elected. | 40748607 |
Back-rower Kalamafoni, 29, and flanker Ryan, 27, will be joined by Joe Ford, 26, and Jonah Holmes, 24, who have been signed from Yorkshire Carnegie.
Fly-half Ford is the brother of Leicester's England star George.
The versatile Holmes began his career at Wasps, while Ryan has made one appearance for Ireland, in 2014.
Kalamafoni has played in two World Cups for Tonga and made more than 100 appearances during his five-year stay at Gloucester.
"It is now time for a new challenge in my career and I'm delighted to be able to sign for Leicester Tigers," said Kalamafoni.
"It is obviously a big club with a lot of history and I'm looking forward to playing my part there." | Leicester Tigers have agreed the signings of Tonga international Sione Kalamafoni from Gloucester and Ireland's Dominic Ryan from Leinster. | 40123819 |
Jacqueline Sauvage suffered decades of abuse and became a cause celebre, prompting a campaign for her release.
Mr Hollande issued a partial pardon at the end of January but the courts twice rejected applications for her release.
He has now given Ms Sauvage a complete pardon and she was freed from jail early on Wednesday evening.
Now aged 69, she had been serving a 10-year sentence at Reau prison, to the south-east of Paris.
"I've decided to grant Jacqueline Sauvage a pardon of the rest of her sentence. This pardon puts an immediate end to her detention," the president tweeted.
In a further statement from the Elysee Palace, he said he felt her place was with her family and not in jail.
A car carrying Ms Sauvage and her three daughters was seen leaving Reau prison soon afterwards.
Campaigners were overjoyed by the news. But Virginie Duval, the head of the French union of magistrates, complained that the president had acted "to please public opinion", pointing out that the judiciary had followed the law when it rejected Ms Sauvage's appeals.
Read more on the Sauvage case: Should presidents pardon?
In August, a local court rejected a plea for parole and its ruling was backed up last month by the court of appeal in Paris.
Ms Sauvage's daughters had fought for her release ever since she was jailed in 2014, insisting that she had been brutally treated throughout her marriage by her husband Norbert Marot. When her son committed suicide, she picked up a gun the following day and shot him.
Justifying its decision to reject her application for parole in August, the local court at Melun explained that Ms Sauvage had not done enough to show remorse.
She could not expect to live in an environment which, because of the media coverage of her case, "would risk maintaining her in the position of victim".
But Ms Sauvage's case attracted the support of 434,000 people who signed an internet petition as well as dozens of MPs, from both left and right.
It also secured the backing of President Hollande, who met her three daughters and gave her a partial pardon, which is part of the constitution but used very rarely.
His initial pardon in January was for her sentence to be reduced to a minimum, allowing for the judiciary to decide when she should be freed. His final decision called for her immediate release. | A French woman in her sixties who murdered her husband in 2012 has been released after a second intervention by President Francois Hollande. | 38453867 |
Robertson, 26, took gold in 6.57 seconds, with Theo Etienne second and 38-year-old Dwain Chambers third.
James Dasaolu, 2016's winner, and CJ Ujah did not attend the event at Sheffield's English Institute of Sport.
Asha Philip comfortably retained the women's 60m crown in 7.19 seconds.
Kilty, who took the world 60m title in Prague in 2015, ran the fastest time in the heats, but again bowed out before the final due to a clear false start.
However, he will not withdraw from next month's European Indoor Championships as he did from the World Indoors after last year's disqualification, and is hopeful of earning selection.
"If the selectors can have faith, I'm not going to make a decision like I did last year to withdraw from the championships," he said.
"This time I stupidly, more than trying to win the race, was chasing a really fast time.
"I've never won a national championships, I've won everything else and I just don't understand - honestly I'm just baffled. I've just been stupid."
However, Robertson told BBC Radio 5 live that Kilty's disqualification had no bearing on his victory.
"I was very, very confident of the win, even if Kilty was in it I knew I could win," he said.
Philip - who beat Dina Asher-Smith to claim her first title last year - was not faced with her rival this time round, and raced clear of the field to win with ease.
The victory has also secured her automatic selection for March's European Indoors in Belgrade.
"I'm over the moon, I'm excited, I didn't get to go [to the European Indoor Championships] two years ago, I want to go this year," she told 5 live.
Andrew Pozzi ran 7.44 seconds to equal the fastest indoor 60m hurdles of the year and remain British champion.
Eilish McColgan pipped her Scottish compatriot Steph Twell to the women's 3,000m title on the final straight, while Morgan Lake and Beth Partridge decided to share the high jump title after it went to a jump-off.
The 200m and 400m races will be held on Sunday, as well as the men's 800m and 3,000m finals, streamed live via BBC Sport on connected TV and online from 11:55 GMT. | Andrew Robertson won his first British 60m title at the indoor team trials, as 2015 world champion Richard Kilty was disqualified in the final for a false start for the second year in a row. | 38944856 |
The seventh seeds beat Koreans Kim Gi Jung and Shin Seung Chan 21-12 21-16 at the Barclaycard Arena.
In the last eight on Friday, the Adcocks face Indonesia's Tontowi Ahmed and Liliyana Natsir, who beat them at the same stage last year.
The husband-and-wife pair have never reached the last four of the Championships.
"It's another quarter-final here and that's an amazing feeling, but we do want to go that step further," said Gabby Adcock, who lost 21-19 with Chris in the final set to Ahmed and Natsir in 2015.
"We know it's tough. We had a close match last year but we are going to go out there and give our everything."
Britons Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge reached the last eight of the men's doubles by beating Korean seventh seeds Kim Gi Jung and Kim Sa Rang 14-21 21-15 21-16.
Ellis and Langridge will play top seeds Lee Yong Dae and Yoo Yoo Seong, also of Korea, for a place in the semi-finals. | British pair Gabby and Chris Adcock are through to the last eight of the All England Championships in Birmingham. | 35778898 |
They are looking for chains of depressions known as catenae.
These would have formed when comets passed too close to the Sun and broke apart under tidal forces into many pieces, and then splattered the surface of the Solar System's innermost world.
The Open University team is examining pictures returned from the US space agency's (Nasa) Messenger probe.
This satellite, which is expected to end operations on Thursday with a crash of its own on to Mercury, has already revealed some extraordinary insights into the planet's past relationship with comets.
Many of the ices and other volatile compounds seen in permanently shadowed craters at the poles were most probably delivered by the frozen wanderers.
Likewise, the blackened hue of some surface deposits may indicate a dusting of carbon-rich material derived from comets that have hit Mercury.
Given its position so close to the Sun, one would expect the planet to have been pelted by the countless icy dirt-balls that routinely get drawn in to graze our star.
And tidally fragmented comets would have done so as a train of objects, having been dislocated in the Sun's immense gravity field.
Something very similar is seen out at Jupiter where comets that have got too close to the gas giant will crumble and then sequentially splatter its moons.
David Rothery and Emma Fegan have been poring over Messenger images, trying to determine how many of the 500 or so crater chains they have identified on Mercury are evidence of this same process of tidal disruption.
Many of the catenae are unarguably the result of debris that was flung out of primary impact bowls (dug out by intact colliding comets or asteroids). These ejecta strings form radial patterns that can be traced back to an obvious source.
The chains Rothery and Fegan are attempting to distinguish, on the other hand, have no clear origin. They appear isolated.
And, intriguingly, when they plot the orientation of these suspect catenae, they appear to betray a bias. More seem to point north-south than east-west. If confirmed, this may say something about the early population of comets in the Solar System.
"It could be that we're seeing the north-south ones more easily because of the direction of sunlight, but these are pretty big features - kind of hard to miss," explained Prof Rothery.
"If there are genuinely more catenae orientated north-south than east-west, it's suggesting that if they're produced by tidally disrupted comets then the comets that were hitting Mercury more than three billion years ago had orbits tilted at more or less ninety degrees to the plane of Mercury's orbit."
The idea is somewhat speculative at the moment, but fascinating nonetheless.
Although the image stream from Messenger is about to end, the next probe to Mercury is already under construction.
BepiColombo is a joint venture between the European and Japanese space agencies.
Its mission will launch in 2017 and arrive in orbit in 2024. Prof Rothery is the lead co-investigator on Bepi's Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS), which has been designed by a team at Leicester University.
He presented his and Fegan's catenae research at the recent European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos | UK scientists are hunting for impact craters on Mercury that are likely to have been produced by disrupted comets. | 32530125 |
It cited lootings, property destruction, abductions and killings in territory recaptured from the Islamic State (IS) group.
Sunni Arabs face discrimination from Iraqi authorities and other groups who accuse them of supporting IS, it added.
In October, Amnesty International raised concerns over "war crimes" by Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
The UN said it was particularly worried about 1,300 Sunnis stranded in "no-man's-land" near Sinjar, between Kurdish security forces and IS.
"Reports indicate that Iraqi security forces and Kurdish security forces and their respected affiliated militias have been responsible for looting and destruction of property belonging to Sunni Arab communities, forced evictions, abductions, illegal detention and, in some cases, extrajudicial killings," UN spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly said.
"We have received reports as well about their limited access to basic services and essential goods, such as water, food, shelter and medical care," she added.
Ms Pouilly said the UN had also received reports of 16 mass graves containing the bodies of those killed by IS - but added it was unclear how many bodies were in the graves.
Her office has called on Iraq's government to investigate, she told reporters.
Sinjar, in northern Iraq, was liberated from IS in mid-November. The militant group captured the town in 2014, killing and capturing thousands of Yazidis.
Sunni Arab communities left behind now face accusations of sympathy for IS, according to the UN. | The UN says it is "extremely concerned" by reports of attacks by Kurdish forces on Sunni Muslim Arabs living in Iraq. | 35010363 |
Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said the activity would be led by Portuguese police with the involvement of British officers.
Madeleine was three years old when she went missing from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal in May 2007.
Scotland Yard launched a fresh investigation last July.
Mr Rowley did not give details about what the next phase would involve, but said officers were working through every credible line of inquiry as part of the "slog of a major investigation".
He said: "It's something that you would expect in any major inquiry.
"A thorough serious crime investigation works systematically through all the credible possibilities, and often in an investigation you will have more than one credible possibility.
"Therefore just because we're doing a substantial phase of work in the forthcoming weeks doesn't mean that it's going to immediately lead to answers that will explain everything."
The Metropolitan Police's relationship with officers in Portugal was working well, he added.
Scotland Yard's investigation - codenamed Operation Grange - came two years into a review of the case.
In March, British police said they were seeking an intruder who sexually abused five girls in Portugal between 2004 and 2006.
Detectives say the attacks happened in holiday villas occupied by UK families in the Algarve.
Clickable map and timeline | Police investigating Madeleine McCann's disappearance say "a substantial phase of operational activity" will begin within weeks. | 27514800 |
Mr Harding said during a speech at the British Library that the corporation had a public service duty to "deliver on its obligation in local news".
"Economic woes" of the local newspaper industry were "not the BBC's fault", he said during the WT Stead lecture.
"The classified advertising market has moved online", he added.
Mr Harding said the drift of classified marketing from local papers to the internet had resulted in financial difficulties for the regional press.
"The local newspaper industry's problems lie with the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Gumtree, eBay and a long, long tail of others. I am acutely concerned by the pressures facing the local newspaper industry and we at the BBC will do anything to help," he said.
His remarks follow those made in November by Home Secretary Theresa May, who told the Society of Editors that the BBC had to think "carefully" about its local news service.
She said: "Local newspapers are having a particularly hard time. That has partly been the result of the BBC's dominant position on the internet, and its ability to subsidise the provision of internet news using the licence fee.
"This makes it enormously difficult for local newspapers to compete. If the BBC can, as they do, provide all the locally significant news, what is left to motivate the local reader to buy a paper?"
She added that the corporation was "destroying local newspapers and it could eventually happen to national newspapers as well".
Mr Harding, who previously edited The Times, said the BBC's regional bulletins attracted some of its largest audiences for news.
"We have a direct interest in the health of local newspapers and regional newsrooms," he said. "We thrive thanks to vibrant public debate and courtesy of the stories and ideas unearthed by our colleagues in rival news organisations."
But he added that the BBC's primary responsibility must be to "serve licence fee payers".
"They want and are entitled to the best possible local news services we can deliver," he said.
Following the recent scandal of executive payoffs and fallout from the dropped Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile, Mr Harding also spoke about the need to retain the trust placed in the BBC by the public.
"Trust is our most prized asset - and the key to our future," he said. "It depends upon us striving, ceaselessly, to be fair, reliable and open to ideas."
He stressed the BBC's "uncompromising commitment to accuracy, impartiality, diversity of opinion and the decent treatment of people in the news".
Commenting on the issue of press regulation, Mr Harding highlighted the need for a free and independent press.
"I worry when politicians and judges weigh in, " he said, "either frequently or eagerly, on the behaviour of journalists and news organisations."
"At a time when our society needs curious, inquisitive journalism more than ever, I think we need to be extremely vigilant against encroachment on press freedom and freedom of expression," he added. | News director James Harding has spoken out against the "mistaken view" the BBC should "rein in" local news coverage for fear of damaging local newspapers. | 25725840 |
The musical, which opened on Broadway in 1981 and was filmed in 2006, has taken 35 years to reach the West End.
Sonia Friedman partly attributes the delay to actors not being available to populate its predominantly black cast.
"Thankfully, shows like The Lion King have meant many more people of colour are now working in theatre," she said.
"When Dreamgirls opened [in New York] 35 years ago, it would have been very hard to cast it here at that time," the producer continued.
"We now have a fantastic talent pool and will be able to keep it running for years and years because of the talent that is out there."
The Lion King opened in 1999 in London and still plays to full houses at the Lyceum Theatre, 17 years on.
Several members of Dreamgirls' ensemble have appeared in the show there, or in other stagings of the Disney musical.
Freidman also cited the specific demands placed on the show's lead actress as another reason why Dreamgirls has taken so long to cross the Atlantic.
Dreamgirls tells of a black female singing trio, reminiscent of The Supremes, who fight to make their mark in '60s America.
The 2006 film, starring Beyonce and Eddie Murphy, was many Britons' first exposure to the Tony Award-winning show.
Jennifer Hudson won an Oscar, a Bafta and a Golden Globe for playing Effie White, the threesome's most gifted and volatile member.
The role - which Friedman says is like "climbing Everest and doing a marathon at the same time" for a performer - is played in London by Amber Riley.
Riley, best known for playing Meredith Jones in US TV show Glee, was in tears as she took her bows at end of Wednesday's opening night.
"Some nights it's like that," she told the BBC News website. "I get so overwhelmed and caught up in the story."
Riley, who is making her West End debut in the production, said the part of Effie was "the role of a lifetime".
"She starts really young and ballsy and she gets to be vulnerable, and then she gets to be an adult," the 30-year-old explained.
"I get to show her whole entire journey, and I've never really gotten to share that arc before."
Reviews of the show have praised the US actress, with The Guardian describing her as "a notch above... on a stage of great singers".
Its critic Lyndsey Winship said that her "huge and effortless voice... rips through the auditorium".
"Without question, Riley is the biggest reason to buy a ticket," writes Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph.
Casey Nicholaw's "slick" and "tinselly" production, he continues, offers "tremendous gusto of soul and gaiety of spirit".
The Mail's Quentin Letts says the show "has great costumes and incessant dancing" and is "likely to be a hit".
The Times' Ann Treneman, however, thinks "it doesn't deserve to be" one - as its plot is "far too skimpy" and its singing "way too loud".
Riley's Glee co-star Chris Colfer and comedian Sir Lenny Henry were among the audience at the Savoy Theatre on Wednesday.
Sir Lenny has been a vocal campaigner for more representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people in the broadcasting industry.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. | The producer of Dreamgirls has said its belated London transfer might not have happened had shows like The Lion King not helped foster black acting talent. | 38327225 |
The very Rev Dr Houston McKelvey will lead the Canons of St Anne's Cathedral on to Donegall Street for the annual event.
Dean McKelvey said, "It is probably going to be the toughest sit-out yet both economically and weather-wise."
The appeal raises money for various charities in Northern Ireland as well as Christian Aid.
This will be the last black santa sit-out for the Church of Ireland dean of Belfast, Rev Houston McKelvey, who announced he is to retire in April 2011.
Dean McKelvey said: "We will be in the street as usual each day from Thursday to Christmas Eve from nine in the morning to five in the evening.
"Relying as always on the tremendous generosity of the people, schools and businesses in our community.
Millions
"I extend an invitation to everyone to come and see us or 'our day off' on Sunday 19 December, when we will present "Carols for the City" and celebrate the Christmas message of God's generosity.
"I would like to sincerely thank those who have already responded to our Postal appeal.
"It helps going on to the street knowing that £90,000 has already been given to this year's appeal."
Dean McKelvey plans to sit outside St Anne's Cathedral until Christmas Eve, continuing a tradition begun by his predecessors 30 years ago.
The charity vigil has raised millions since it began. Dean Sammy Crooks first started the collection in 1976.
Dean McKelvey first sat out for Christmas five years ago, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Dean Jack Shearer, who died in January 2001.
Dean Shearer was initially dubbed Black Santa by the media because of his distinctive clothing and the name caught on among the public.
The appeal raises money for various charities in Northern Ireland as well as Christian Aid. | Belfast's Black Santa is expected to begin his annual Christmas sit-out for charity on Thursday. | 11991724 |
Lenders reported that this was the third successive quarter of falling demand, the bank's Credit Conditions Survey found.
Mortgages for high-value property saw the biggest fall in demand since the third quarter of 2008.
Demand was expected to bounce back in the second quarter.
Some lenders attributed the fall in demand over recent quarters to a combination of changes in regulatory policy and concerns about housing affordability, as well as uncertainty about the outlook for the housing market.
However, the predicted recovery might point to the effect of the general election campaign on the UK housing market.
"For demand to have fallen particularly sharply at the upper end of the market underlines the sensitivity of this demographic to political uncertainty," said Jonathan Samuels, chief executive of Dragonfly Property Finance.
"Many prime and super-prime buyers are sitting on their hands and want to see what the next government looks like before they commit to a purchase. That this is the most uncertain election in decades has certainly triggered more caution at this level of the market than normal."
The survey suggested that lenders were showing a greater willingness to lend to borrowers who were only able to offer a deposit of less than 10% of the property's value so far this year. Many of these borrowers would be first-time buyers. | Demand for mortgages fell sharply in the first quarter of the year in the UK, according to research for the Bank of England. | 32217545 |
The bridge has been closed on May Day morning since 2005 after 40 people were injured jumping into the river.
Traditionally, thousands of people gather on and around Magdalen Bridge to hear choristers sing hymns at dawn from the tower at Magdalen College.
The city and county councils and police have worked to "ensure a safe" event.
Last year, about 30 revellers ignored safety warnings and broke through barriers to jump from the bridge.
The water is shallow and the county council said the cost to the health service in 2005 was about £50,000.
Police urged people not to "abuse" the decision to allow pedestrians access this year.
Many other events will take place across the city, including morris men dancing in Radcliffe Square, Catte Street and Broad Street.
Oxford City Council and the county's cultural development agency, Oxford Inspires, are both working with an event producer responsible for other big occasions in the city.
The leader of Oxford City Council, Councillor Bob Price, said: "We have been working closely with the police and Oxfordshire County Council to ensure a safe and enjoyable event with Magdalen Bridge open, as it has traditionally been, and we are delighted that this collaboration has had a successful outcome."
Oxford commander, Supt Amanda Pearson, said: "Thames Valley Police supports the decision taken by the council to reopen Magdalen Bridge to the public for this year's May Morning celebrations, and will work closely with our partners to ensure this is done in a safe way.
"I would urge people to recognise this decision is one that has been made to further their enjoyment of this unique celebration, and not to abuse it." | Oxford's Magdalen Bridge will be open to the public during the city's traditional May Day celebrations for the first time in six years. | 12731847 |
Police said "a number of weapons" were seized following the attack at a rural property in Devon.
The 24-year-old victim was treated at the scene on Saturday and has now been transferred to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.
Leo Michaels, aged 35, from Hensford Road, Dawlish, has been charged with attempted murder and wounding with intent.
Mr Michaels appeared at Torquay Magistrates' Court earlier and was remanded in custody.
He is due to appear at Exeter Crown Court on 18 August.
Police were called to a property off Hensford Road, Dawlish at 08:00 BST on Saturday, following reports of a man with a crossbow.
They said the victim, from Dawlish, had "injuries consistent with being shot with a crossbow" and he was initially taken to Torbay District Hospital. | A crossbow attack has left a man with "potentially life-changing" injuries. | 36827234 |
Ollie Hannon-Dalby and Keith Barker claimed four wickets apiece as Northants were bowled out for 273.
Youngsters James Kettleborough (71) and Ben Duckett (55) made half-centuries, backed by Adam Rossington (44) and Andrew Hall (43).
Home skipper Varun Chopra was on 43 as the Bears closed on 79-1 from 16 overs.
After the early loss of former captain Ian Westwood, Chopra has so far put on 70 for the second wicket with William Porterfield (24 not out).
After claiming maximum bowling points, the Bears must do the same with the bat on day two to try and close the gap on leaders Yorkshire, who are already in a strong position in their game against Nottinghamshire.
BBC Coventry & Warwickshire's Clive Eakin:
"In truth, Yorkshire's dominance at Trent Bridge is probably good news for Warwickshire.
"The Bears have privately accepted for a while that the title was Yorkshire's to lose but, if the Tykes beat Notts, it puts Warwickshire in a strong position to claim the decent prize money for second.
"Even though they put the bottom county in, this looks a decent pitch. Northants batted well in spells, with Adam Rossington especially pleasing on the eye, but 273 looks below par.
"The short boundary in front of the Eric Hollies Stand encourages brisk scoring and Warwickshire will look to push the game forward on the second day."
BBC Radio Northampton's Chris Egerton:
"Northants began the day learning they are highly likely to miss out on signing Leicestershire's Josh Cobb and they ended it knowing a difficult two days are ahead.
"Despite battling strongly, 273 all out already looks likes being short of a par score and Northants' bowling will need to improve after conceding just short of five an over in the 16 overs possible.
"What is encouraging for Northants' members is that young players such as Adam Rossington (44), Ben Duckett (55) and James Kettleborough (71) are making runs at Division One level.
"Too late to save themselves in 2014 but it gives some optimism for the Division Two campaign next year." | Warwickshire kept their slim County Championship title hopes alive as they enjoyed the better of the first day against Northants at Edgbaston. | 29111539 |
Some 3,740 people died until 23 October, a number that is set to rise as the two worst months are yet to come. Last year's death toll was 3,771.
This comes despite a sharp decline on the number of people crossing the Mediterranean this year.
The UN believes smugglers are changing their tactics, using riskier routes.
One of every 47 migrants or refugees attempting the voyage between Libya and Italy is dying, said William Spindler, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
"This is by far the worse we ever have seen in the Mediterranean," he told journalists in Geneva.
"We can say the death rate has increased threefold."
There were 327,800 crossings this year, against more than one million in 2015, UN numbers showed.
Smugglers, the UN says, are organising more crossings in very bad weather and staging mass embarkations, in which thousands of people in flimsy boats set off at the same time.
This means that if they do run into trouble, rescue services cannot possibly save them all.
"Smuggling has become a big business, it's being done almost on an industrial scale," Mr Splinder added.
"So now they send several boats at the same time and that puts rescue services in difficulty because they need to rescue several thousand people on several hundred boats," he said.
An agreement between Turkey and the European Union to halt migrants from travelling to Greek islands has drastically reduced the number of boat arrivals there.
But there has been a traffic increase on the highly perilous journey between North Africa and Italy.
On Monday, the Italian coastguard said it recovered the bodies of 16 people during 21 rescue missions. Some 2,200 migrants were saved from 18 rubber boats. | This year is set to be the deadliest for migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, the UN refugee agency says. | 37763052 |
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the world's biggest annual consumer technology trade show, with more than a whopping 3,500 companies taking part this year.
Starting on Tuesday, top tech companies will show off their latest gadgets.
Here's a peek at some of the futuristic gear that'll be on show:
One of the highlights is a quadcopter called Zano. It's small enough to fit into your hand, but still powerful enough to film HD quality video.
No tech show would be complete without the latest 3D printers. Highlights include the latest in food printing and machines that can build detailed, multicoloured 3D objects like this below, just out of paper and ink.
It's not just small gadgets: there'll be a whole host of self-driving cars including one that allows passengers to face each other (below) and one that you can park just by using a smart-watch app.
Look out for new quantum dot TV technology which involves tiny crystals - 50,000 times smaller than a hair - to give better colour quality to what you see on screen. And then there are TVs with nits - not the head lice variety - but more nits means the picture will look much better even in a sunny room.
And of course there's more unusual stuff that will be on display.
A toothbrush that plays a video game, a baby's dummy that connects to the net, a ring for your finger to show how many unread emails you have and a dog collar that lets you speak to your pet are all reported to be making an appearance at the huge event.
The CES runs from 6 to 9 January. | If you want to know what's going to be big in tech in 2015, then a huge tech show in Las Vegas might well have the answer! | 30682335 |
Once in the doldrums, production of the country's cocoa crop has risen sharply, registering a 10-fold increase since 2004.
Many of the small farmers, who were previously living on the edge of poverty, have seen a boost to their incomes.
The key to the success has been the development of farmers' co-operatives, which have allowed the farmers to cut out the middlemen who took a large chunk of the profits.
"My life is different now," says Jose Esperansa, a small-scale cocoa farmer, who is now the managing director of CECEAQ-11, a cocoa-fermenting, drying and exporting co-operative.
The initiative, supported by the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) and Cafedirect, a British Fairtrade firm, has helped the co-operatives produce Fairtrade certified beans.
Sao Tome and Principe, a Portuguese colony until 1975, has an ideal climate and rich soils that are ideal for growing cocoa.
The crop was introduced in the 19th Century and cultivated by slaves brought from the African mainland, where they worked on plantations, known as rocas.
But by the late 1990s, the crop was in severe decline, partly because of a crash in the price of the commodity.
The results were crippling, since cocoa made up 95% of the island's exports.
Farmers lost faith in cocoa as a source of income and one politician even predicted the end of the industry on the islands.
A quarter of farmers were left living below the poverty line.
In order to reverse the industry's decline, Ifad commissioned French organic chocolate producer Kaoka to assess the country's cocoa sector.
Kaoka found that if the farmers could produce cocoa certified as organic, they could improve the price of their crop.
Now - in a scheme backed by Ifad and Cafedirect - the farmers' fortunes have been transformed.
By coming together in co-operatives and by processing their cocoa, they have managed to get a much better return on their crop.
"Before Cafedirect I would work from day-to-day, hand-to-mouth," says Mr Esperansa.
"I did not think about the future."
Cafedirect head Anne MacCaig recently travelled to the islands to see how it was done.
"They have the facilities to ferment the product and then from that they are able to work together across the different organisations to dry the cocoa, collect it all in one central warehouse," she said.
"Then they are able to export it.
"They are benefiting from five times the price they had when they sold it as a gloopy white liquid."
Before the programme began in 2004, Sao Tome produced just 50 tonnes of cocoa.
By mid-2010 this had risen to 600 tonnes of organic, Fairtrade beans.
Many producers have invested in home improvements and can now afford items like bicycles, generators, radios and refrigerators.
The co-operatives are investing in primary health-care clinics and better sanitation.
But is the support for the cocoa crop tying the farmers into a single crop, monoculture?
Mrs MacCaig says it will not.
"Sao Tome is an island with incredibly rich volcanic soil, so if you can do this with cocoa, there are so many other products that can be grown as well." | Farmers on the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, off the coast of West Africa, are again enjoying the sweet taste of success thanks to high-quality, organic, Fairtrade cocoa - the raw ingredient for chocolate. | 12261276 |
Northern Lights will showcase the work of designers who have chosen to stay in Scotland to build their careers.
Products on show range from hand-crafted wooden furniture to ceramic jewellery.
Organisers said the show would highlight the "increasing confidence" designers felt in basing their businesses in Scotland.
Product and furniture designer Scott Jarvie said: "London Design Festival will be the centre of the design universe in September, so I'm thrilled to be part of the V&A Dundee show, exhibiting alongside leading lights in contemporary Scottish design.
"The V&A in London has been a great inspiration and influence on my work as a designer, since being captivated by the place as a child. "
The London Design Festival was first staged in 2003 and includes more than 400 events and exhibitions.
Philip Long, director of V&A Dundee, said: "We are delighted with the calibre, ambition and volume of submissions we received to exhibit as part of Northern Lights.
"London Design Festival allows us to highlight these most exciting contemporary product designers, showcase their ideas and ingenuity, and give them an opportunity, whether they are an established or emerging designer, to raise their profile internationally."
The full list of designers and companies taking part in Northern Lights is:
The show runs from 17 to 25 September at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. | Nine Scottish designers and companies will represent Dundee's V&A museum at this year's London Design Festival. | 36912979 |
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26 November 2014 Last updated at 08:47 GMT
Fifty athletes from around the world wore balaclavas, goggles, gloves and mittens to brace sub-zero temperatures and take on the 26.2 mile course.
The race took place on 18 November, a few hundred miles from the South Pole at the foot of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica.
An earlier marathon saw six runners run a hundred kilometres, non-stop! | Running a marathon is hard enough - but how about doing it in temperatures as low as -50 degrees? | 30205259 |
Morgan, 31, has played 52 games for the Latics since moving from Championship rivals Rotherham United in June 2015 and has 23 international caps.
He captained the side to the League One title last season, having previously done the same with Rotherham.
"The chairman made it very clear he wanted me to stay," Morgan said.
"I think it's right I should repay his faith." | Wales international defender Craig Morgan has signed a new two-year deal at Wigan Athletic that will run until the summer of 2019. | 39458032 |
But the chairman, European Council President Donald Tusk, will keep the two discussions separate - despite concern that some jihadists are slipping into the EU posing as migrants and exploiting the freedom of movement provided by the Schengen zone.
At least two of the killers involved in the Paris attacks got in among the crowds of migrants arriving daily on the Greek islands near Turkey.
But EU leaders are anxious to avoid sounding like the nationalists who argue that the removal of border controls in the EU left Europeans more at risk from terrorists. That is the rallying cry of the French National Front (FN) and some other populist parties.
Migration and terrorism are also treated as separate issues because - as pointed out by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker - many asylum-seekers are themselves fleeing from the terror inflicted by Islamic State (IS), the Taliban and other extremist groups.
The dilemma for the EU is that Schengen - the passport-free area embracing 26 countries - greatly eases the flow of people and goods across the EU, but also requires more information-sharing, to prevent cross-border criminality.
About 1.7 million EU citizens cross borders daily in the Schengen zone to go to work, the Bruegel think-tank reports.
And opinion polls indicate that many Europeans value Schengen more than any other change brought about by the EU.
But temporary border controls have been reimposed - by France, Germany, Austria and Hungary.
So the stakes are high at this summit.
"Our goal is clear: we must regain control over our external borders to stem migratory flows and to preserve Schengen," said Mr Tusk in his summit invitation letter.
Mr Juncker said Europeans now have "one border" and "a shared responsibility to protect it".
"We want to defend everything Schengen represents, and let me tell you that Schengen is here to stay," he told the European Parliament.
Saving Schengen means beefing up the surveillance of all people entering or leaving the Schengen area.
So in future EU citizens, as well as those from outside the bloc, will have their passports checked against police databases.
There is much work to do, however, to link up and improve those databases.
More than a million refugees and other migrants have surged into the EU this year, most of them desperate to reach Germany or other northern countries where job prospects are better, or where relatives can help them settle.
The Syrian war has pushed irregular migration to the EU to a record high.
There are fears that the international campaign to smash IS, and the Russian bombing in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, will drive even more Syrians to flee abroad.
So the 28 leaders in Brussels will look again at the EU's help for Greece and Turkey. The migrant registration process is still slow and patchy.
Turkey, struggling with more than two million Syrian refugees, now has much bargaining power. Critics say the EU risks compromising its human rights standards as it leans on Turkey to curb the migrant flow.
Greek coastguards and the EU's Frontex border agency only manage to intercept 20% of the migrants who reach Greek islands after life-threatening voyages, according to Frontex.
This week the Commission unveiled an ambitious plan for a new EU Border and Coast Guard to tackle problems on the EU's external borders.
The force - stronger than Frontex - would have 1,000 permanent staff and 1,500 reserves, who could be deployed rapidly to a trouble spot, within three days.
That could happen even without the host country requesting it - if the rest of the EU decides to take action.
Such force majeure might be the exception - but Poland has already raised objections on sovereignty grounds.
Once again, the migrant crisis is threatening to divide, more than unite, Europe. | Two pressing issues - migration and the fight against terrorism - are set to dominate the EU summit, as leaders gather in Brussels. | 35116452 |
Locomotive No 563, which hauled trains on the London and South Western Railway, has been given to the Swanage Railway by the National Railway Museum.
It appeared in stage adaptations of Edith Nesbit's classic in Canada and in London.
Volunteers will work on the engine with the aim of returning it to steam.
Descendants of its designer William Adams were present for the unveiling ceremony in Corfe Castle.
His great great grandson Alex Campbell said: "It's amazing how something so functional can also be so beautiful.
"The T3 represents a bygone era of technical excellence that combined strength, durability and aesthetic beauty."
Built in 1893, the 86-tonne T3 locomotive had run a total of 1.5 million miles, mainly hauling express trains between London and the south coast, by the time it was withdrawn from service in 1945.
It survived being scrapped as it was selected for restoration for a display at the centenary celebrations for London's Waterloo station in 1948.
The locomotive was transported by sea to Canada in 2011 where it spent six months at Toronto's Roundhouse Park for a theatrical production of The Railway Children.
It returned to the UK where it was used in the show at a pop-up theatre in King's Cross, London. | A Victorian steam locomotive that featured in the theatre adaptation of The Railway Children has been unveiled at a Dorset heritage railway. | 40107476 |
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Fishlock, 30, became the first Wales international to win 100 caps.
The Seattle Reign midfielder marked the occasion with an unstoppable strike on 39 minutes to send Wales 2-1 up.
Georgia Evans and Natasha Harding got Wales' other goals while Rachel Furness scored from the spot for Northern Ireland after Kayleigh Green handled.
It was also a special day for Notts County Ladies midfielder Angharad James who won her 50th Wales cap.
Wales are playing Northern Ireland twice in two days in preparation for the upcoming Fifa Women's World Cup Qualifying campaign.
Qualification begins in September for the tournament in France in 2019, with the draw taking place in April.
Wales and Northern Ireland meet again at Ystrad Mynach on Friday, 7 April. | Jess Fishlock celebrated her 100th cap in style as she helped Wales to a comfortable win over Northern Ireland with a terrific first-half goal. | 39501049 |
The jury for the latest case had been selected but a deal was done in the early hours of the day the US trial was to begin, according to news site Ars Technica.
Unwired Planet had sought $33m (£25.7m) and a cut of iPhone and iPad sales, which it said made use of its tech.
The terms of the settlement have not been made public.
Apple had previously described the case - involving voice recognition and data transmission inventions - as being "frivolous".
Nevada-based Unwired used to develop mobile software, when it was known as Openwave Systems, but no longer makes products of its own.
It acquired the rights to the inventions involved in the case from Ericsson in a controversial deal. Rather than purchase the technologies outright, Unwired instead agreed to share future revenues generated from the patents with the Swedish telecoms equipment-maker.
That has led some to describe Unwired as a "patent troll" - although the firm's legal team described the term as "hackneyed".
"Our ambition is to bring efficiency and fairness to patent licensing and create a marketplace where product manufacturers and innovators feel confident that high quality technology is available at a fair and reasonable price," a spokeswoman for PanOptis Patent Management, which recently bought Unwired's licensing business, told the BBC.
"Over the past nine months since we acquired the Unwired Planet patent portfolio, we have actively resolved a majority of the existing litigation that had been initiated by Unwired Planet, including suits involving Samsung, LG and Apple."
Earlier this month, the firm scored a court victory over Huawei in London.
The Chinese company was ordered to pay a global fee for use of Unwired's 4G patents or face a UK sales ban.
Unwired previously won a case against Samsung involving 2G technologies.
It is also involved in disputes with Google and HTC. | Apple has settled a patent dispute with a litigant that had already beaten Huawei and Samsung in court. | 39642178 |
The value of the invested savings and pensions of millions of people in the UK are dependant on asset managers.
In a damning report, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said there is weak price competition, leaving customers paying high charges.
An industry association said price transparency had been improving.
The FCA has studied the asset management system for a year, and has now published its interim report.
In a string of criticisms, it said that investors often paid high charges, there were examples of poor value for money in some funds, and that consultants could bring better results for pension savers.
"In today's world of persistently low interest rates, it is vital that we do everything possible to enable people to accumulate and earn a return on their savings which can meet their lifetime needs," said Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA.
"To achieve this, we need to ensure that competition in asset management works effectively to minimise the cost of investment.
"We want to see greater transparency so that investors can be clear about what they are paying and the impact charges have on their returns. We want asset managers to ensure investors receive value for money through pursuing energetically their duty to act in their customers' best interests."
He ruled out a price cap, which he argued would not encourage competition.
Some investors have been critical of the sector for years, owing to the complicated structure of fees that can include charges for performance and transactions.
There was criticism in the report of "actively-managed funds" when a fund manager is paid to research the market. The extra cost to investors of this service were, on average, "not justified by higher returns", it said.
The FCA is proposing an all-in fee among other measures to help investors decide which fund is the best for them.
It also wants a more standard set of information across the sector making costs and charges clear.
The potential benefits of UK pension funds pooling their assets to gain better returns should also be explored, the FCA said.
The Investment Association, the trade body that represents UK investment managers, said that it had already been improving the transparency of costs.
"The investment management industry is committed to serving the needs of the UK's savers and investors and so we support the FCA's objectives to ensure that competition in the industry works to the benefit of its customers, whether individuals, families or institutions," said Chris Cummings, the association's chief executive.
"Over the coming weeks, we will engage closely with the FCA to understand its findings and the full implications of potential remedies."
The interim report now goes to consultation. The FCA said action could be announced next summer.
One of the City's most lucrative gravy trains is running out of steam.
Fund managers occupy a cosy world in which they have plenty of wiggle room on charges, make high profits and pick up tasty bonuses.
The FCA's solution is to have one easily-comparable charge and make value for money a priority. It might even ask the government to impose a statutory duty of care.
But the question which really stands out from this investigation is whether active fund management is really worth it. That's when managers pick the stocks they think will succeed.
The FCA found that investors in a passive fund which just tracks the market could earn a 44% higher return over 20 years, because of lower charges.
Most investors would forgive even a sizeable charge if they had something to show for it. | Investors should be quoted a single "all-in fee" so the amount taken in charges from their investment returns is clear, a regulator has said. | 38024796 |
The plans at Peelhouses Farm north of Lockerbie first surfaced in late 2008.
They were granted planning permission in principle in 2010 which was extended by a further three years in 2013.
Now developers have indicated they intend to seek more time for work to start and also look at carrying it out on a phased basis.
The scheme first emerged about seven-and-a-half years ago with the promise of an £800m investment and the creation of thousands of jobs.
It pledged to turn the site into an "international hub for the internet age".
Initially the scheme also included a major housing development but those proposals were subsequently dropped.
The latest plans include a data centre, technology park, horticultural research facility and visitor centre.
Consultants WYG have contacted Dumfries and Galloway Council on behalf of planning firm Blackmores to discuss extending the time limit on permission for the scheme which would currently run out later this year. | A long-running bid to build an internet data centre in southern Scotland looks set to seek a further time extension to its planning consent. | 36652079 |
He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier in Canberra before officially reporting for duty.
He also presented a letter from the Queen in which she wrote that her grandson would "benefit greatly" from spending time with Australian troops.
The prince, called Captain Wales in his military role, will leave the British army in June after 10 years' service.
During his placement in Australia, he will patrol with Aboriginal soldiers and train with the country's special forces.
He officially reported for duty to Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, Chief of the Defence Force, after laying his wreath and placing a poppy during a tour of the Australian War Memorial.
He also presented the Queen's letter, in which she wrote: "I am delighted that the long and enduring association between the Australian and British armies will be joined by the military secondment of my grandson, Prince Harry.
"Together, our armed forces share skills, resources and resolve in order to uphold and defend our common values.
"In 2015, when together we commemorate the many sacrifices of our countrymen at Gallipoli a century ago, it is fitting that we can also reflect on the strength and persistence today of those common values and our professional military ties.
"I know that Captain Wales will benefit greatly from spending time with the Australian Diggers [soldiers] and I thank you for welcoming him into your ranks."
The Australian military has said the placement will be "challenging and hectic", and the prince has said he is "tremendously looking forward" to it.
The placement will be briefly interrupted when he travels to Turkey later this month for commemorations to mark the allied campaign at Gallipoli in 1915, in which thousands of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand were among the dead.
It is believed that the prince will do voluntary work for charities later in the year as he considers his future options. | Prince Harry has arrived in Australia for a four-week placement with the Australian Defence Force. | 32193402 |
Liver disease deaths have more than doubled in the past 20 years, largely due to an increase in obesity, alcohol misuse and blood borne viral hepatitis.
The plan, backed by £1m Welsh government funding, hopes to increase clinical expertise in the disease.
It will also encourage people to take more responsibility for their health. | A new plan to tackle the rising number of people with liver disease in Wales aims to improve early detection and speed up referrals. | 32589706 |
The Women in Love author directed the insult at Pangbourne while inquiring about cottages to let in August 1919.
He wrote: "Pangbourne is repulsive - it sort of smells - women use scent on their clothes, and petrol plus river plus pavement... I suffer by the nose".
The note was sold by auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
It was addressed to his friend Bertie Herbert Farjeon at a time when Lawrence was leading an itinerant lifestyle after being forced out of his Cornwall home following accusations of spying.
After asking Bertie whether the cottage he wanted was vacant, the writer declared that he was "so sick of mankind".
Three months after the letter was posted he left Britain for good as part of a self-imposed exile.
Lawrence, whose other novels included Lady Chatterley's Lover and The Rainbow, was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, in 1885 and died in France in 1930 aged 44. | A letter written by DH Lawrence in which he describes a Berkshire village as smelly has sold for £1,000 at auction. | 38590589 |
Students earlier this summer took a total of 35,537 exams.
But what do we know about how well Wales is doing? How many students are going to university? And what happens next for those still with big decisions to make?
MAKING THE GRADE
A new top grade, A*, was introduced in 2010. A total of 6.6% achieved this in 2016, a fall on last year and still short of the UK average of 8.1%.
The proportion of students getting A* and A also fell again from 23.1% to 22.7% and Wales continues to trail the rest of the UK and all regions of England apart from the North East of England.
When you look at individual subjects, more students in Wales have been getting top grades in maths over the last five years than in England - but in English language, Wales has been trailing, with the gap still 3.2% in the latest set of results.
In French, 31% got A* to A in Wales - this is an improvement, but 37.8% managed that in England. The gap was as wide as 14% in 2012. Numbers of students taking French have also gone down by 11% this year.
Wales and England are a little further apart now at the top grades for A-level physics, with Wales dropping back to 25.8% behind England on 29.6%.
It is worth looking too at how many students are only getting the lower grades.
A slightly higher proportion in Wales - 23.5% - got D and E grades, compared to 20.6% in England. That gap has also widened slightly too.
Wales has more students getting these lower grades in English (23.2%) than who managed A* to A (15.9%) in the same subject.
There is also a more students getting D and E grades in French in Wales than in England for most of the last six years.
David Evans, secretary of NUT Wales, said A-levels were the first time students specialised in subjects and it was important the quality of education and teaching was there.
"We need to look at the numbers who get A* and celebrate them, and those who get As, Bs and Cs too," he said.
"We need to make sure we have a clear focus on those who achieve the grades they need for university and makes sure support is there for those who go on to do other things as well."
On the question of whether A-levels are getting easier, Phil McTague, head teacher of Ysgol Eirias in Colwyn Bay said: "If Usain Bolt sets a new record in the hundred metres, people don't say the hundred metres is getting easier! Our students have worked really hard this year and we're proud of all their results."
HOW DOES WALES COMPARE WITH ENGLISH REGIONS?
For the first time last year, we were able to compare Wales' results with regions of England on the day they were published.
Wales has the lowest percentage of A*-C grades of any area - 73.8- including every English region.
It also has the lowest for A* and A - apart from the North East of England, which is now lower than Wales.
WHAT IS THE PERFORMANCE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS?
Girls continue to outperform boys overall in Wales, with 97.9% of entries by girls this year gaining A* to E grades, compared to 96.5% of boys.
At the A* grade, the performance of boys was marginally better than that of girls, with 6.7% of boys and 6.5% of girls gaining A* - both improving since 2013.
You can also see performance differences between boys and girls for the top grades within subjects - as well as a difference in subjects chosen. The likes of physics and computing are very male dominated compared to French, English and Welsh at the other end of the scale.
Gareth Pierce, chief executive of the WJEC exam board, said some of the patterns were long standing "and a natural feature".
Why do more girls go to university?
HOW MANY STUDENTS APPLY FROM WALES?
There were 23,740 students from Wales applying to universities in the UK this year - and with many looking at more than one university, this meant a total of 40,010 applications to Ucas.
There is very little difference in the number of students from Wales applying to university over the last few years.
More than half a million students got higher education places in the UK last year - three quarters of those who applied. These included 20,500 students from Wales, a 1.7% rise and a new high, while 87.5% of 18-year-olds from Wales who applied got places.
Of those 18-year-old students who applied to Welsh universities, 84% got an offer, while 75% of Welsh applicants to English universities got an offer.
Although there is a lot of attention at schools on results day - only around half of those entering university are 18-year-olds; others take gap years while the number of students over 26 is rising again.
By the end of Thursday, Ucas said 17,510 students from Wales had places in higher education - more than at the same time over the last five years.
STILL, MORE 18-YEAR-OLDS ARE GOING TO UNIVERSITY
Wales recorded its highest entry rate - 28.2% of all 18-year-olds got higher education places through Ucas in 2015 - although that is behind England on 31.3%.
Wales has had one of the lowest proportional increases of UK nations and regions since 2006 - 13%.
WHERE YOU LIVE CAN BE A FACTOR
Fewer pupils from poorer parts of Wales get to university.
Entry rates are broken down across the UK into constituencies and analysis shows they are lower in more disadvantaged areas.
In Wales, the entry rate range is from just under 18% of 18-year-olds in Aberavon, to just over 48% in Cardiff North.
For those in the most disadvantaged districts in Wales the average rate is 16.6%, almost the same as the year before.
But compared with entry rates five years ago, 18-year-olds from disadvantaged areas in Wales were 23% more likely to be accepted for entry in 2015 - in England they were 30% more likely.
Meanwhile, students living in what are classed as the most advantaged areas of Wales are five-and-a-half times more likely to go to a university with higher entry requirements than those from the most disadvantaged parts.
Leading academic Prof Sir Deian Hopkin said the numbers from poorer backgrounds getting to university were still disappointing despite efforts.
"One of the great challenges in higher education is to attract students from less-affluent backgrounds because. very often, they come from an education system which doesn't encourage them to come to university in the first place," he said.
"Now a lot has been done over the years, there has been a big improvement, but the proportion has not grown at the same rate as the total increase in students in higher education. Therefore the challenge remains."
Prof Hopkin added: "The disappointment in England is that the grant which supported many students has been abolished.
"In Wales, at least that has been maintained for now, but we need to see far more effort being put into encouraging, supporting and, indeed, mentoring students from backgrounds where these things are not natural."
WHERE DO STUDENTS AT WELSH UNIVERSITIES COME FROM?
Altogether, 77,750 students have already applied to Welsh universities - 18,450 from within Wales.
The chart shows where the others come from - more than half of them from England.
UNCONDITIONAL OFFERS ON THE RISE
There has been a rise in students receiving unconditional offers from universities - which will have relieved the exam pressure a little for some. Across the UK, offers were made to 23,400 students in 2015, compared to only 3,000 two years before.
This is around 2.5% of applications and involves 36 institutions, but there is no breakdown of how many are from Wales.
Cardiff and Swansea universities only made unconditional offers to students who are pre-qualified. This amounted to 1,200 for Cardiff this year.
Aberystwyth University said it made offers based on performance in its own scholarship exam, while Bangor University said it made unconditional offers to some of the most promising students, but they were looking "at the whole package" before deciding where to go.
CLEARING: NO LONGER A LAST RESORT
Around 4,100 students from Wales were looking for places on results day through the clearing system, which is a lower number than the last five years.
A total of 300 students from Wales were given places on the first day, according to Ucas.
Clearing has become more of an accepted way in, no longer something to be embarrassed about for not getting the right grades.
Ucas says clearing has "transformed into a respected and important route" into higher education.
All Welsh universities are promoting their clearing services heavily, promoting many courses across the board.
Cardiff University had around 400 places available through clearing.
Bangor University said it was "no longer seen or used as an opportunity of last resort" and said it was seeing more students waiting to get their results before applying.
David Moyle, Aberystwyth University's schools and colleges liaison manager, said there was no longer a stigma attached to clearing.
The university took 1,000 calls last year and was offering "a limited number of places" across 315 courses, with demand expected to be high in science and computing.
The aim is to ensure students "get the best advice to make an informed decision", said Mr Moyle.
Back in 2013, Ben Grantham's A-level results were better than he expected and he was on the phone within an hour to clearing to get a place studying media and communication.
"With a process such as clearing it's important to act fast," said Ben, who recently graduated with first class honours.
"Hundreds of students will be in a position where they wish to apply for a course immediately following their results, and places are often limited and can fill up fast."
Joanna Harris, of Careers Wales, said clearing could sometimes be a blessing in disguise to give students a chance to reflect and warned against making rushed decisions.
"Take a breath, do your research, look at the Ucas website for what's available or even ring the university you wanted to go to to see if they might still accept you first.," she said.
"There is often more than one university in towns and cities - don't make a rash decision, it's important, with the amount of money it will cost you, that you make the choice of course that's right for you."
CLEARING DETAILS
OTHER ROUTES
Only two thirds of 18-year-olds who left school last year went on to university, according to research by Careers Wales.
WHAT IF I DON'T GET THE RIGHT GRADES?
Kerry Ann Wallace, 20, from Newbridge, Caerphilly, was upset after failing to get the right grades to study psychology last year but was in touch with a careers adviser.
It led her to a youth work apprenticeship at Torfaen council and she has ambitions to be a family support worker.
"I haven't looked back and it's great to be earning money while I learn," she said.
"If you're disappointed this week please go and talk to someone as I did, look online for things and don't be upset - find something you love."
Career adviser Joanna Harris, of Careers Wales, said it was important to take stock and look at options - but volunteering, an internship or part-time work can be useful additions to CVs ahead of the next step.
Some will retake exams but there are also useful websites, such as notgoingtouni, which can point students on the career path, including apprenticeships.
"There's a choice," said Ms Harris. "Just because you didn't get into Cardiff University, say, there might be a course somewhere else, there are foundation degrees and feeder degrees.
"If you're struggling, book an appointment with us or call us." | Thousands of students in Wales have received their A-level results, while universities will over the next few weeks deal with hundreds of remaining places through clearing. | 37045414 |
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
If you want to receive Breaking News alerts via email, or on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App then details on how to do so are available on this help page. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on Twitter to get the latest alerts. | Lord Janner to be prosecuted over claims of historical sex abuse after independent review overturns CPS decision | 33310095 |
Eifion Gwynne, 41, died last month and previously expressed his wish to be buried at Plascrug Cemetery, Aberystwyth.
The only plots left are for people with an exclusive right of burial.
But Ceredigion council confirmed a plot has now been transferred to the family.
It means Mr Gwynne can be buried in the cemetery when the funeral for the father-of-three and former Aberystwyth and Llandovery rugby player takes place on Saturday.
Family friend Wayne Thomas told BBC Wales Mr Gwynne had discussed his wishes with his wife Nia.
"He always said he wanted to be buried in this cemetery, it's close to the rugby club and it's close to his home," he said.
A memorial fund set up in Mr Gwynne's memory has raised almost £12,000 in donations.
Confirming a plot had been made available, Ceredigion council leader Ellen ap Gwynn said: "A family who had reserved a plot came forward and offered it to Nia and family.
"We were very pleased that the council was able to help with ensuring this. We offer our deepest sympathy to the family at this very difficult time." | A Ceredigion rugby player killed in Spain will have his final wish fulfilled after friends and family secured a plot in a cemetery. | 37934604 |
Cesc Fabregas marked his 300th Premier League appearance by firing the Blues ahead, poking the ball through the legs of Jack Cork and into the net.
The hosts were stunned when Swansea equalised from their first serious attempt on target on the stroke of half-time - Fernando Llorente heading in Gylfi Sigurdsson's free-kick.
Fabregas hit the bar before Pedro's curling effort restored the lead and Diego Costa netted the third from close range.
Swansea were denied a penalty when Cesar Azpilicueta handled inside the area at 1-1.
This was far from straightforward for Antonio Conte's side and had referee Neil Swarbrick awarded Swansea a penalty shortly before Pedro made it 2-1 then the outcome might have been different.
However, in the end Chelsea's sweeping forward play earned them a 10th straight home Premier League win as they took another significant step towards a second title in three seasons.
On a weekend when the first major silverware of the season - the EFL Cup - is handed out at Wembley, the Blues look unstoppable. They have 63 points from 26 games - three more than at the same stage in 2014-15 when last crowned champions of England.
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Fabregas could have ended the game with four goals on his return to the side.
The Spain midfielder had a goal-bound shot deflected behind shortly before he opened the scoring, was denied by former Arsenal team-mate Lukasz Fabianski and also rattled the bar.
With former Blues midfielder Frank Lampard watching on, Chelsea turned on the style.
While it required an error from Fabianski to restore the lead, Eden Hazard's exquisite timing and pass for Costa to make it 3-1 was a delight.
Chelsea were forced to work hard for three points thanks to a well organised and energetic Swansea side and the Swans looked a shadow of the team that was bottom of the Premier League table five weeks ago.
Their four-point safety cushion at the start of the day is down to three, but boss Paul Clement will have been pleased with the way his side frustrated the runaway leaders for long spells.
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Llorente's equaliser shook Chelsea who were showing signs of frustration before Pedro made it 2-1.
Swansea's next four games - Burnley (home), Hull City (away), Bournemouth (away) and Middlesbrough (home) - give them a chance to stay clear of the bottom three before they entertain Tottenham on 4 April.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte: "We played very well, it was a good performance, and we created many chances to score. We conceded at the end of the first half, after the time was finished, so in this case there was a bit of luck, but we showed great character in the second half.
"We deserved a lot to win the game, now it's important to continue in this way."
Swansea City boss Paul Clement: "Any game we play and don't win we are disappointed. Chelsea are a very good side, they have fantastic quality and that was the difference. We didn't have a lot of chances but we came in at 1-1 for half-time and for long periods we defended really well.
"There was a big moment with the handball, I thought Cesar Azpilicueta handled it at 1-1, it's a clear handball. That gives you a chance to go 2-1 up but three minutes later you're 2-1 down with a soft goal. Based on chances they deserved to win, but there was big moment that didn't go our way, and who knows what might have happened."
Former England midfielder Jermaine Jenas: "I don't think Swansea should have had a penalty as the distance from Gylfi Sigurdsson to Cesar Azpilicueta is too close and Azpilicueta's arm is already out. His hand is there because he's trying to stop Sigurdsson's run."
Ex-England captain Alan Shearer: "I think it was a penalty. I think it was a deliberate movement of his hand towards the ball and I think Chelsea got away with one there. It could have been very different if the ref had given it.
"We've seen in recent weeks with Swansea that they made it very difficult for Liverpool at Anfield, they were unlucky to lose at Manchester City. They are very organised. The difference between Liverpool and City with this Chelsea side is the pace with which they go forward. That's why Cesc Fabregas was in the team today. He was brilliant. He's the one that started the goal off.
"It's topical that players are not working for mangers. The irony is last season we were sat here with a large bunch of these same Chelsea players - they weren't working for their manager and we know what happened. It's such a transformation now. We saw how brilliant they were with the ball but look at them now without it. The transformation from then to now is incredible."
Chelsea have nine days to prepare for their next game away to West Ham United on Monday, 6 March (20:00 GMT). Swansea entertain Burnley on Saturday, 4 March (15:00 GMT).
Match ends, Chelsea 3, Swansea City 1.
Second Half ends, Chelsea 3, Swansea City 1.
Attempt missed. Cesc Fàbregas (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Willian.
Foul by N'Golo Kanté (Chelsea).
Jack Cork (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Corner, Chelsea. Conceded by Alfie Mawson.
Kurt Zouma (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Fernando Llorente (Swansea City).
Substitution, Chelsea. Willian replaces Eden Hazard.
Substitution, Chelsea. Kurt Zouma replaces Victor Moses.
Goal! Chelsea 3, Swansea City 1. Diego Costa (Chelsea) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Eden Hazard.
Attempt missed. N'Golo Kanté (Chelsea) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Nemanja Matic.
Substitution, Swansea City. Luciano Narsingh replaces Wayne Routledge.
Leroy Fer (Swansea City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Eden Hazard (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Leroy Fer (Swansea City).
Foul by Victor Moses (Chelsea).
Martin Olsson (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt saved. Gylfi Sigurdsson (Swansea City) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.
Substitution, Swansea City. Jordan Ayew replaces Tom Carroll.
Substitution, Chelsea. Nemanja Matic replaces Pedro.
David Luiz (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by David Luiz (Chelsea).
Fernando Llorente (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Gary Cahill (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Wayne Routledge (Swansea City).
Goal! Chelsea 2, Swansea City 1. Pedro (Chelsea) left footed shot from outside the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Cesc Fàbregas.
Victor Moses (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Fernando Llorente (Swansea City).
Foul by Diego Costa (Chelsea).
Alfie Mawson (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Gary Cahill (Chelsea).
Leroy Fer (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Pedro (Chelsea) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Jack Cork (Swansea City).
Corner, Chelsea. Conceded by Kyle Naughton.
Attempt blocked. N'Golo Kanté (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Gary Cahill.
Foul by Diego Costa (Chelsea).
Federico Fernández (Swansea City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt blocked. Diego Costa (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Cesc Fàbregas. | Chelsea stretched their lead at the top of the Premier League table to 11 points after victory over battling Swansea City at Stamford Bridge. | 39012181 |
Right-back Hodgkiss, 30, who spent last season on loan at Torquay, has signed a two-year contract.
Forward Wilson, 24, has agreed a one-year contract.
Meanwhile, George Pilkington has signed a new one-year contract, while David Fitzpatrick has also agreed a deal with the National League club.
The announcement comes after Macclesfield, who finished ninth last season, lost defender John McCombe to Chester and midfielder Ollie Norburn to Tranmere.
Askey, who is in his second spell with the club, having also managed the Silkmen between 2003 and 2004, has extended his stay for another season.
"John's loyalty to the club, in a number of roles, is unrivalled and we continue to progress under his leadership," Macclesfield chairman Mark Blower told the club website.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page. | Macclesfield have signed Jared Hodgkiss from Kidderminster and Scott Wilson from Eastleigh, while boss John Askey has signed a new 12-month rolling deal. | 40221674 |
Glasses, bottles and other items were thrown after a pre-season friendly between Grimsby Town and Sheffield United on Saturday.
Four were charged with assault, affray and public order offences following disorder at Blundell Park, Cleethorpes.
Two people have been released on bail. Police said CCTV footage was being checked, with further arrests expected.
A Humberside Police spokesman said football banning orders may be imposed to prevent fans attending future matches. | Four people have been charged after trouble at a football match left two police officers injured. | 36884862 |
Jamal al-Harith reportedly received £1m from the British government after being freed from Guantanamo Bay in 2004.
Lord Carlile said the payment was wrong as al-Harith was "plainly a terrorist".
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his government's decision to free him from Guantanamo.
Al-Harith, who was 50 and from Manchester, was originally known as Ronald Fiddler.
He took the name Jamal al-Harith when he converted to Islam, but was known most recently by the nom-de-guerre Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, given to him by so-called Islamic State.
Who are Britain’s jihadists?
Al-Harith was seized by American forces in Pakistan in 2001, before being sent to Guantanamo Bay - a US prison in Cuba for terrorist suspects.
US interrogators found he provided useful information about the Taliban's methods, and he was released after two years.
He later joined IS and blew himself up at an Iraqi army base in Mosul this week.
Lord Carlile - who reviewed terror laws from 2001 to 2011 - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It [the compensation] should never have been paid.
"There was absolutely no merit in paying him a penny, because plainly he was a terrorist."
He said he believed the settlement was paid to avoid disclosure in court of security service activities.
A Downing Street spokesman declined to answer questions about the reported payout, on the grounds it was an intelligence matter.
But Mr Blair released a statement accusing the Daily Mail of "utter hypocrisy" after it ran a story about al-Harith on Wednesday headlined: "Still Think He Wasn't A Danger, Mr Blair? Fury at Labour government's £1m compensation for innocent Brit".
He said the man's release in 2004 had "followed a Parliamentary and massive media campaign led by the Daily Mail... and strongly supported by the then Conservative Opposition".
The former PM continued: "He was not paid compensation by my government. The compensation was agreed in 2010 by the [coalition] government..."
Lord Blunkett, who was home secretary at the time of al-Harith's release, said he had never campaigned for his return, but "fully accepted that the situation of British citizens held without trial there, was unsustainable and legally and morally indefensible".
The government in 2004 had "acted responsibly" he said, adding that "public controversy" at the time had been about whether enough was being done to release detainees "and not the wisdom of providing balanced reassurance".
Lord Blunkett said those returning from Guantanamo Bay were kept under surveillance and monitored by the security services.
Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary in 2004, said he "never regarded" al-Harith as innocent "and neither Mr Blair nor I ever said that he was innocent".
"We judged that the risk was not so great as to prevent his release.
"Whenever you're making decisions about the release of prisoners you have to make a judgement, and sometimes those judgements are not borne out by events."
Leon Jameson, al-Harith's older brother, says they last spoke two years ago on the phone, before he went to Syria.
Mr Jameson described his sibling as "fun" when he was growing up and "always helping other people".
When asked about his brother's suicide bombing he said: "I can't actually commend him about it because it isn't right, but he's done it. It's something he believes in, so I'll leave that with him.
"He did what he could for other people, which is what he used to always be like.
And he said "it had been a struggle" for his brother ever since Guantanamo Bay. "If he didn't even listen to his wife, none of us could have really changed his mind." | A British IS fighter who carried out a suicide attack in Iraq should never have received a penny in compensation, a former independent reviewer of UK terrorism legislation has said. | 39054429 |
A black police chief who had worked diligently to improve community relations, and reduce the use of force, now had to confront a racially motivated attack by a young black man against his officers.
"We're hurting. Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken," he said.
He spoke on behalf of the Dallas Police Department, but his words echoed a personal statement he made six years earlier, in the wake of another Dallas police death.
In June 2010, just weeks after he was sworn in as police chief, a young Dallas officer and father was shot dead on father's day. The killer was Mr Brown's 27-year-old son.
"My family has not only lost a son, but a fellow police officer and a private citizen lost their lives at the hands of our son," he said.
"That hurts so deeply I cannot adequately express the sadness I feel inside my heart."
Mr Brown's son, David O'Neal Brown Jr, first shot dead a private citizen, Jeremy McMillan, as McMillan drove his family to his sister's house. He then shot police officer Craig Shaw, who was responding to the first shooting, more than a dozen times.
Mr Brown took a leave of absence, according to local news reports from the time, and there was speculation that he would resign.
It was not the first time he had suffered loss - in 1988, his former partner Walter Williams was killed in the line of duty. Three years later, his younger brother was shot dead by a drug dealer.
But Mr Brown returned to work, determined to improve the Dallas Police Department's relations with the community. The department began to focus on de-escalation rather than force. Mr Brown placed emphasis on community policing and increasing transparency, even at the cost of clashing with department figures.
He made enemies of the police unions by publicly sacking crooked officers, the Dallas Observer reported. He was told community policing was a waste of time.
But by 2014, five years after his appointment, excessive force complaints against Dallas officers had fallen by 64%.
"In my opinion, how can you argue with aggressive community policing if it has yielded the safest the city has been over 86 years?" he said in an interview with the Observer in February.
Mr Brown's approach was visible on Thursday, in the hours before the gunman opened fire, as the police department's Twitter account posted pictures of officers posing with protesters and smiling.
"Men, women, boys and girls gathered at Belo Garden Park for the demonstration re: recent police involved shootings," said one tweet.
"Dallas police officers maintain traffic control to ensure the safety of the demonstrators," said another.
In the aftermath of the attack, several reporters who cover the Dallas Police Department pointed out the irony that the gunman targeted a force which had made strides to break the cycle of violence between its officers and community.
Speaking to the Observer in February, Mr Brown paid tribute to his officers and acknowledged the risks they took.
"Over the last 12 years we've lost five cops in the line of duty," he said. "I mean, it's not just numbers on a page. It's sacrifice, and it's sacrifice at the highest level."
Dallas Police Department equalled that 12-year sacrifice in a few short hours on Thursday. On Friday, Mr Brown reiterated his plea for mutual respect.
"There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city," he said. "All I know is that this: This must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens." | When five Dallas police officers were shot dead by a sniper on Thursday, it fell to David Brown, the city's police chief, to sum up the shock and grief of the force and the community. | 36753964 |
Mr Trump also said Republicans were coming at him "from all sides" and their disloyalty was harder to fight than the Democrats.
Mr Ryan is the latest Republican not to back Mr Trump after a 2005 video emerged showing him making obscene comments about groping women.
However Mr Trump has been strongly supported by running mate Mike Pence.
"You have nominated a man for president who never quits, who never backs down. He is a fighter, he is a winner," Mr Pence said at an event in Iowa, praising him for apologising during Sunday's debate for his lewd comments.
The renewed party divisions over Mr Trump come as a new PRRI/Atlantic poll suggested Mrs Clinton holds a 49-38 lead over her opponent.
A video released on Friday revealed Mr Trump describing how he had sought to have sex with a married woman and making other sexually aggressive comments about women.
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama's spokesman said Mr Trump's remarks were "repugnant" and amounted to sexual assault.
Nearly half the 331 incumbent Republican senators, House members and governors have condemned Trump's lewd remarks on the video and about 10% have called for him to drop out of the race, Reuters news agency reports.
On Monday, Mr Ryan told fellow House Republicans he would focus on congressional elections to ensure Republicans could maintain legislative control.
Mr Trump fired back in a string of tweets, saying the "shackles" had been removed, allowing him to "fight for America the way I want to".
He also attacked Senator John McCain, who has denounced Trump's conduct and faces a close re-election battle, as "foul-mouthed"
Though the latest revelation underscores a widening divide within the Republican Party, some members insist they are sticking by Mr Trump.
Donald Trump isn't going gently into that good night.
If the Republican Party, led by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, follows through with its promise to abandon his campaign in hopes of preserving its congressional majority, he appears willing to burn it to the ground and salt the earth.
That was the takeaway from the Republican standard-bearer's unprecedented Tuesday morning Twitter storm. Reportedly delivered from the confines of his eponymous tower in New York, Mr Trump lashed out at a party establishment that never really wanted him as its nominee and only grudgingly backed him in the hopes that he was a force they could control.
That was a misguided belief.
Mr Trump sees himself as bigger than the party whose primary voters he courted, and now he will open fire on perceived enemies who surround him. Democrat Hillary Clinton, in a new television advert, lacks the "stamina" to lead. Mr Ryan, he tweeted, is "weak and ineffective".
Mr Trump, in his own words, is "unshackled" at last. In 2008 Republicans fretted that their vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, had "gone rogue" and was woefully off-message. Eight years later, an entire presidential campaign has become unmoored and is threatening to rage against the fabric of their party.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he was "really disturbed" by Mr Trump's comments about women but still planned to support him, saying the election was "about bigger issues than that".
Texas Senator and former rival Ted Cruz also said he would still cast his ballot for Mr Trump, telling a Texas TV station that Mrs Clinton was an "absolute disaster".
Another rival from the primaries, Senator Marco Rubio, said he would also back Mr Trump.
Meanwhile, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus held an emergency call with members on Monday to declare the party would stand behind Mr Trump despite recent turmoil, US media reported.
Who is ahead in the polls?
48%
Hillary Clinton
44%
Donald Trump
Last updated October 10, 2016
How does the US election work?
A-Z guide to political jargon
Key issues - where candidates stand
Why this election will make history | Republican nominee Donald Trump has ripped into House Speaker Paul Ryan as a "weak and ineffective" leader. | 37612459 |
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The 25-year-old, with the help of his 'Will-bombs' fans, explains how the scheme - which runs sessions across the UK - can help "make you an incredible player".
READ MORE: Find out how you can get into tennis with our special guide. | Marcus Willis, the qualifier who played Roger Federer in the second round of Wimbledon 2016, is helping to promote the Advantage Tennis Training scheme. | 36805789 |
About 150 people had gathered near the interior ministry, demanding the release of political prisoners.
It follows Tuesday's "day of rage" when hundreds calling for democracy protested in Damascus and Aleppo.
The interior ministry said "infiltrators" tried to stir chaos. But among those held was a 10-year-old boy.
Activists say he was with his father - and both were detained.
Others included 69-year-old Damascus university philosophy professor and author Tayeb Tizini, and leading human rights activist Suhair Atassi.
"They pulled Suhair by her hair and took her away," one demonstrator said, according to Reuters.
Journalist and activist Mazen Darwish told the BBC that he was set free only after being held for five hours in the military security branch's detention centre alongside 20 others, including women. A further 15 were still being detained by state security, he said.
"When I showed them my international press card they shouted and said 'Why were you standing among protesters and not among the journalists?'," said Mr Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Freedom of Speech.
No further information about those detained was immediately available.
No dissent
The ruling Baath party has dominated Syrian politics for nearly 50 years.
President Bashar al-Assad - who came to power in 2000 after three decades of rule by his father Hafez - has moved slowly to open up the economy, but his administration does not tolerate any dissent.
Some of the 150 protesters who gathered held photos of those they said had been imprisoned for their political views.
"After a long wait and rumours of an impending release of prisoners of conscience in Syria, our hopes have vanished," said a statement from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The organisation - which groups together the families of 21 jailed human rights activists - had said it planned to demonstrate in front of the ministry on Wednesday.
Reports said that shortly after the protesters gathered a counter-demonstration was held in the same square with people chanting that they would defend the Syrian president "with our soul, with our blood".
The interior ministry denied that the initial protest was political in nature.
"There were some persons who took advantage of this call to slip among these people and tried to shout some slogans," said Gen Mohamed Hassan al-Ali, of the interior ministry's moral guidance department.
There are thousands of political prisoners in Syrian jails, and major opposition groups are banned.
The government also blocks access to several internet sites and maintains strict control of the media though authorities have lifted bans on Facebook and YouTube in the wake of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
In January, President Assad told the Wall Street Journal that Syria was more stable than Tunisia and Egypt. He said that there was no chance of political upheaval, and pledged to press on with a package of reforms.
The BBC's Lina Sinjab, in Damascus, said that many had doubted that any protests would take place in Syria, but observers here believe events over the past couple of days have broken the silence that dominated the country. | At least 35 people have been arrested after they defied a ban on demonstrations and protested in the Syrian capital, reports say. | 12757394 |
MOTD2 pundit Danny Murphy expands on his TV analysis of the part his former Tottenham team-mate Jermain Defoe played in Sunderland's vital derby win over Newcastle.
When I realised his starting position was on the right wing in a 4-3-3 formation, I was surprised to say the least.
I know Jermain well from training and playing with and against him, and he does not particularly like playing in those wide areas - he certainly did not enjoy it back in the day.
That is understandable because he is a goalscorer and he lives off the goals he gets. He does not normally like being in areas of the pitch where he cannot affect the game in a positive way.
But obviously he was asked to play a different role by Sunderland manager Dick Advocaat because of their circumstances and he did a brilliant job for the team.
I have never seen Defoe work as hard as he did to contribute defensively on Sunday - he tracked back on the left too and at one point he was making sliding tackles near his own corner flag, which was a first.
He is 32 now and he will not want to be doing that permanently. But knowing him like I do, if he is asked to do any kind of job for his team to help them stay in the Premier League then he will always give it his all.
I do not think playing him there gets the best out of him, but it worked for Sunderland on Sunday.
Ultimately, Defoe only had one shot at goal in his 80 minutes on the pitch, but it was a world-class finish to win Sunderland the game and three vital points.
That is what they signed him for, and you could see from his celebration how much it meant to him.
I have played in midfield behind Defoe and he is a very special talent in that he does not solely rely on through-balls.
If you get the ball to his feet, he has got the capability around the box to beat people himself and shoot from range with real power.
Defoe has pace and thrives on being put through too of course, but one of the reasons he has scored as many goals as he has done in his career is that there are so many different elements to his game.
Yes he will get in the six-yard box to score you a tap-in but he can create goals for himself and, as Newcastle found out, score from distance as well.
Before that goal, he had not scored for six games which will have been hurting him because he is not used to it.
But I know that it will not have knocked his confidence because he is the sort of player that never loses faith in himself, and for good reason.
That bit of class he produced against Newcastle was the kind of moment of brilliance I have come to expect from him after playing with and against him down the years.
Defoe's appetite was typical of the rest of the Sunderland team.
What Dick Advocaat's side lack in quality, they make up for in physicality and endeavour which is a massive positive for them.
They have got some powerful players and they look fit, which is an often overlooked factor at this stage of the season.
Against Newcastle, both of their full-backs - Billy Jones and Patrick van Aanholt - did brilliantly, flying up the wings.
They also have a few clever players, like Jordi Gomez and Seb Larsson, who have been in this position at the bottom of the table before and will be used to the pressure involved when you are fighting relegation.
From what I saw of them in this game, they have got enough about them to beat the drop.
But that is mainly because of the quality Defoe gives them in the final third. He could be the difference between them staying up, or not.
Danny Murphy was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan. | Jermain Defoe's brilliant winner against Newcastle has made the headlines but it was the less spectacular parts of his performance that stood out for me. | 32192542 |
Poorer pupils are particularly badly affected, says the head teacher training charity Future Leaders Trust.
Researchers plotted the distance between state schools in England against the proportion of pupils achieving five good GCSEs.
The steepness of the drop in poorer pupils' grades was "quite astounding", said report author Katy Theobald.
Looking at average GCSE attainment over three years to 2014, all students did worse in schools that were further apart - but the impact was greater on students eligible for free school meals, the researchers found.
Schools less than 1km (0.6 miles) apart saw almost 68% of pupils overall achieving five A* to C GCSE grades. Among pupils eligible for free school meals, the figure was 49%.
But even a slight increase in the distance between schools saw a sharp drop in grades for poorer pupils, according to the study.
A 1-2km gap between schools saw less than 42% of poorer pupils achieving good results, falling to less than 37% for poorer pupils at schools with a 3-4km gap.
Nationally, some 65% of pupils overall achieved five good GCSEs over the three-year period, while the figure for pupils eligible for free school meals was 42.6%.
So pupils at schools less than 1km from their nearest neighbour perform better than average on both counts, say the researchers.
They calculate that for each additional kilometre between schools, the attainment of free school meals students declines by an average of 1.06 percentage points.
However, the average attainment of free school meals students was not lowest in the most geographically isolated schools - more than 15km from their nearest neighbours, according to the researchers, although it was still poorer than in the most highly populated areas.
Some of the success of urban schools stemmed from the fact it was so much easier for teachers collaborate, said Ms Theobald.
"If you are in London you can just pop into another school to observe good practice - if you are in an isolated school, it's a whole day away," she said.
It is also harder for isolated schools to recruit staff at all levels, according to Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
And all too often they were in areas of high unemployment, "which makes the job of raising pupils' aspirations that little bit more difficult", said Mr Trobe. | Pupils at isolated schools do worse at GCSE than teenagers in areas with a choice of schools, suggests research. | 34856060 |
Brierley, who signed from Championship side Leigh Centurions in March, had never crossed in the top flight before.
Wigan tries from Anthony Gelling, John Bateman and Matty Smith made it 18-18.
Smith and Danny Brough swapped drop-goals before Smith landed a second one-pointer and Dan Sarginson's score sent the Warriors to the summit.
Shaun Wane's Wigan moved two points clear of Warrington and Catalans, although for so long it appeared that the visitors would register two successive wins for the first time in 2016 and move off the foot of the table.
Brierley's hat-trick was high in quality - Leroy Cudjoe's break set up his first, while his second was created by Brough's superb grubber kick.
After Huddersfield had been pegged back to 12-12 by Bateman's close-range score, some free-flowing handling gave Brierley a free run to the line - a try scored while team-mate Nathan Mason was in the sin-bin.
The final 10 minutes became a drop-goal contest between half-backs Smith and Brough, and Wigan forged a crucial one-point lead before England international Sarginson raced over in the dying seconds to clinch a thrilling victory.
Defeat for Huddersfield, who have been beaten in 10 of their 12 Super League games this season, was further soured by the loss of centre Jake Connor to a serious-looking ankle injury just before half-time.
Wigan: Sarginson; Charnley, Gelling, Gildart, Tierney; Gregson, Smith; Mossop, Powell, Flower, Bateman, Isa, Sutton.
Replacements: Clubb, Tautai, Burke, Wells.
Huddersfield: Brierley; McGillvary, Cudjoe, Connor, Murphy; Brough, Wood; Johnson, Hinchcliffe, Huby, Wardle, Ta'ai, Lawrence.
Replacements: Rapira, Leeming, Mason, Roberts.
Referee: Joe Cobb | Huddersfield full-back Ryan Brierley scored a stunning hat-trick of tries but Super League's bottom club lost to Wigan, who went top of the table. | 36083416 |
Crowds danced, sang and waved rainbow flags at the event held outside the capital Kampala, the culmination of a week of celebrations.
One of those attending hoped it would be a "step forward" for the country.
But many people in Uganda strongly oppose gay rights, and homosexuality is punishable with a jail sentence.
Anti-gay legislation allowing for life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality" and banning the "promotion of homosexuality" was annulled by Uganda's supreme court last year.
One of those marching, Moses Kimbugwe, said: "It is about trying to show the wider community that violence, discrimination, harassment, stigma against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people is bad.
"So we are here to send a message to the wider population that we do exist, and we want rights like any other Ugandan."
One of the organisers, Richard Lusimbo, told the AFP news agency: "For us, this is a celebration of who we are."
Events earlier this week included a transgender awareness day and a "Mr and Miss Pride" beauty pageant.
US President Barack Obama spoke out in favour of gay rights in Africa on his recent visit to the continent but some African leaders have argued homosexuality is not part of African culture. | Activists in Uganda have held a gay pride rally, a year since a law requiring homosexuals to be jailed for life was overturned. | 33839050 |
Spain is implementing drastic spending cuts to try to slash its budget deficit to 5.3% from 8.5% in 2011.
Many economists said the target was always unrealistic.
Last weekend, Spain was given 100bn euros ($125bn; £80bn) in emergency loans to help its struggling banks.
The IMF said Spain needed to raise revenue from taxes, and look at further spending cuts. However, it added that Madrid should not look to cut its deficit too quickly given "an unprecedented double-dip recession with unemployment already high".
Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone, with almost one in four workers out of a job.
Earlier this year, the government announced 27bn euros of cuts from its budget as part of one of the toughest austerity drives in the country's history.
Changes included freezing unemployment benefits and public sector workers' salaries, slashing departmental budgets and increasing tax on large companies.
But the spending cuts and tax rises have undermined the economic recovery in Spain. The country is back in recession and its banks are severely under-capitalised given the collapse in the Spanish property market.
The 100bn-euro bailout has failed to restore confidence in the country's economy, with the interest rate, or yield, paid on government bonds traded in the secondary market hitting 7% on Thursday, a level widely seen as unsustainable.
Bond yields in the secondary market are seen as a good indication of investor's confidence in a government's ability to repay its debts. | Spain is likely to miss its budget targets for this year and Madrid should adopt wider reforms to reduce its debts, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). | 18464690 |
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said Operation Midland was "extensive and carried out diligently".
There was no evidence to indicate "bad faith, malice or dishonesty" by the officers, the watchdog said.
The much-criticised operation closed last March without a single arrest.
Of five officers referred to the Commission, three were cleared of causing "prolonged and undue stress" to those being investigated.
One of the three - an unnamed detective chief inspector - is being investigated over an alleged failure to present relevant information to a judge when applying for a search warrant.
Former MP Harvey Proctor, who was among those cleared of being part of an alleged Westminster abuse ring, said the "bungled and disastrous" police operation had ruined his life and left him destitute.
He said he believed no police officer would ever be held responsible for it, and accused the IPCC of conducting a "whitewash".
The £2.5m Met investigation was launched in 2014 after a man known as "Nick" claimed that boys had been sexually abused and even murdered by a group of powerful men from politics, the military and law enforcement agencies.
The abuse was said to have been carried out at locations across southern England and London in the 1970s and 1980s.
Retired judge Sir Richard Henriques reviewed the investigation and identified 43 serious failings in his report, including that "Nick" had been believed for too long and that search warrants had been applied for with flawed information.
Former Met Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised to those affected by the inquiry, including Mr Proctor, former military chief Lord Bramall, and the wife of the late Lord Brittan, a former home secretary.
The force referred five officers to the IPCC.
The IPCC has now cleared three of them - Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse, Detective Superintendant Kenny McDonald and an unnamed detective chief inspector - of causing prolonged and undue stress to those under suspicion by failing to properly investigate "Nick's" claims.
Mr McDonald had, at one stage, publicly described "Nick's" allegations as "credible and true".
In a statement, the IPCC said: "There is no evidence to indicate bad faith, malice or dishonesty and no indication any of the officers may have behaved in a manner which would justify disciplinary proceedings.
"The information available indicates the investigation was extensive and carried out diligently with the majority of the decisions made appropriately recorded."
But the watchdog said there was an indication that the DCI and two other detectives may have failed to accurately present all relevant information to a district judge when applying for search warrants for three properties.
The searches - in March 2015 - resulted in those under suspicion being named in the media.
The IPCC said it was discontinuing its investigation into allegations of irregularities in the seizure of exhibits during the searches.
There will also be no further investigation of Mr Rodhouse for his conduct in relation to a separate inquiry involving Lord Brittan.
IPCC commissioner Carl Gumsley said: "The allegation that incomplete information may have been provided to a district judge when applying for search warrants is serious and the IPCC will thoroughly investigate this matter." | Three senior Scotland Yard officers have been cleared over their handling of allegations at the centre of an investigation into VIP paedophile claims, the police watchdog has said. | 39212665 |
Mohanna Abdhou was shot in Malvern Road, Kilburn, on Friday night and died at the scene.
In a statement her family said they were "heartbroken at the loss" of their "loving daughter".
Ms Abdhou, known as Montana, was approached by "two males" on bicycles who fired "shots at her group".
A post-mortem examination on Saturday gave the cause of death as a single gunshot wound.
Her family said: "We are truly saddened, heartbroken and still in complete shock that we have lost a beautiful and caring soul.
"No words can truly express our feelings towards this situation.
"She was a loving daughter, sister and friend. She was loved by everyone and her warmth and kindness will be remembered fondly."
Det Ch Insp Andy Partridge said police had found nothing in Ms Abdou's background "which gives any suggestion she would have been a target".
The two suspects have been described as being of medium build and dressed all in dark clothing.
Police said their faces were covered, which "would have made them stand out on such a warm evening". | The family of a woman shot dead by two cyclists have paid tribute to the "beautiful" 20-year-old who was "loved by everyone". | 40094011 |
Peadiatric pathologist Dr Paul French told the High Court at Livingston that the child had also suffered double fractures of his thigh bone and arm.
Nyomi Fee, 29, and Rachel Fee, 32, deny killing Rachel's son Liam in a house near Glenrothes on 22 March 2014.
The couple also deny harming two other children.
The court heard that Liam, who was two-and-a-half and not growing as he should, had more than 30 external injuries including bruising to his private parts and signs of internal bleeding at various sites through his torso.
Dr French, 38, who carried out a post mortem examination on Liam two days after he was pronounced dead, told the jury that he found the sac around Liam's heart - the pericardium - was filled with 70ml of fresh blood.
"It shouldn't be there," he said. "It says there's been injury to the heart or that area that's caused that bleeding and the haemmorhage.
"That's a significant volume of blood. For a child of that age that's about 8% of the blood circulating around his body.
"That would impair the function of the heart - it would stop it being able to beat properly and would cause death."
He said he found a laceration in the wall of the child's right atrium which would have caused his "rapid death".
Similar injuries have been found in the victims of high speed road accidents, he added.
He described Liam's broken bone injuries as "quite severe" and said the large amount of bleeding in the muscle around the leg fracture could have contributed to his death.
He stressed that heart injury was the most likely cause of Liam's death but said he could not rule out that it had been caused during CPR.
Dr French said the child had a low body weight for his age, in the bottom 4% of the population according to medical charts.
He also said Liam appeared thin, with the muscles in his arms and legs less than he would expect to see in someone of his age.
He said the causes of failure to thrive were natural disease, possibly disease of the muscles, poor diet or potentially neglect.
The jury was shown post mortem photographs of the toddler's broken thigh bone.
The doctor said it was impossible to know how it was caused, apart from blunt force trauma.
He added: "This child has sustained two fracturing events to his right femur and left humerus three to five days and less than six hours before death."
The child would have been unlikely to have been able to put weight on his leg, Dr French said. He would have been crying, distressed and upset.
Liam's mother Rachel Fee and her civil partner Nyomi Fee deny murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by blaming the killing on another child.
They also deny a number of child neglect charges involving Liam and two other boys in their care.
The trial before Lord Burns continues. | Toddler Liam Fee suffered a ruptured heart as a result of severe "blunt force" trauma, a murder trial has been told. | 36036272 |
A Libyan military spokesman told the BBC that the ship's movements at the port of Derna had aroused suspicion.
The oil company rejected this, saying the ship was delivering fuel to industrial facilities there and the authorities had been kept informed.
Derna has been controlled by Islamist militants for the past two years.
The Libyan military attacked the port several times last year in an attempt to weaken militant groups there.
The military spokesman, Colonel Ahmed Mesmari, said the tanker had been targeted because it had failed to submit to an inspection before entering the port.
He said the vessel was supposed to dock at a power plant in Derna but instead "took a different route", entering a "military zone".
"We asked the ship to stop, but instead it turned off all its lights and would not respond so we were obliged to strike it.
"We bombed it twice," he said.
Libya's National Oil Corporation said the tanker had picked up 13,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil in Brega, a port south of Libya's second city, Benghazi, which it was due to deliver to a power plant and water purification facility in Derna.
It said the vessel was attacked before it could enter the port to unload its cargo.
There were 26 crew members on board the ship, Araevo, including nationals from the Philippines, Greece and Romania.
Two were injured in Sunday's attack, in addition to those killed.
The Liberian-flagged tanker is operated by an Athens-based shipping company, Aegean Shipping Enterprises Company.
The company said there was no leakage of oil and it was assessing the damage.
Col Mesmari told Reuters the vessel had been bringing Islamist fighters to Derna.
"We had warned any ship not to dock at the port without prior permission," he was quoted as saying.
The National Oil Corporation did not comment on the allegation but said the bombing of the tanker would have a "very negative" impact on oil shipping from Libyan ports.
It said it remained neutral in the conflict in Libya and the incident would hinder its ability to maintain supplies within the local market.
Libya has been in chaos since its long-time leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown with Western military help in 2011.
Numerous militias govern their own patches of territory, with successive governments struggling to exercise control.
The competition for power and resources has led to frequent fighting and battles to control facilities, including ports, linked to Libya's oil industry.
The internationally recognised government is based in Tobruk, near the Egyptian border, having been expelled from the capital, Tripoli, by militias in 2014.
A rival militia-backed administration now controls the capital while Benghazi is largely in the hands of Islamist fighters. | Libyan air force jets have bombed a Greek-operated oil tanker chartered by Libya's national oil company, killing two crew members. | 30681904 |
"That village over there will be flooded," he points. "Monkeys, birds, Indians - we'll all lose our homes."
Over the last few months some 13,000 Munduruku have been protesting against government plans to build a series of hydroelectric dams that will flood part of their land on the upper reaches of the Tapajos river.
After a week-long meeting back in April, the caciques (chiefs) from more than 60 villages issued a statement, demanding that the government listen to them before it presses ahead with the five dams planned for the river.
Women have not traditionally been fighters among the Munduruku, but now Maria Leusa Kaba Munduruku, the leader of a new group of female warriors, says that everyone must be involved.
"The government must recognise our rights, not just those of others," she stresses.
Despite vociferous opposition from indigenous and environmental groups, construction is already well under way for the gigantic Belo Monte dam on the Xingu river.
Now the new frontier for Brazil's hydropower expansion has moved to the Tapajos River - a huge tributary to the Amazon that lies further to the west.
Opposition here is fierce as the region has some of the richest biodiversity in the world.
Adrian Barnett, a British biologist working in the area, says that - even by the high standards of the Amazon basin - the Tapajos is an area of extreme biological richness.
Of the 1,837 species of bird that occur in Brazil, 613 can be found in the Tapajos, he points out.
The government plans to award the contracts for the first of these dams, Sao Luiz do Tapajos, later this year.
Along with the next dam, Jatoba, it should come on stream by 2020.
As well as flooding 552 sq km (213 sq miles) of land, the dikes will change the river flow, disrupting the lives of indigenous and numerous fishing communities.
The dams will have an installed capacity of 8,471 megawatts and will generate as much electricity as Belo Monte.
To mitigate their environmental impact, the government is copying the oil-rig system used in the North Sea, bringing in workers by boat for two-week work shifts rather than building roads.
The authorities are adamant that they need to tap into the huge hydropower potential of the Amazon if Brazil is to have the energy to fuel its ambitious development programme.
Claudio Salles, director of the Acende Brasil energy think tank, says that of the 19,000 additional megawatts the government plans to have by 2021, 16,000 will be generated in the Amazon.
"This gives you an idea of just how important this energy is for us," he says.
But some analysts believe that Brazil needs to rethink its development plans.
Celio Bermann, a lecturer in energy and the environment at the University of Sao Paulo, says Brazil is providing big subsidies for electricity-hungry sectors, such as the smelting of bauxite in the Amazon to make aluminium, without thinking whether this is really in the country's long-term interests.
"We are exporting a tonne of aluminium for $1,450-1,500 (£855-884) while importing manufactured aluminium goods at twice the cost.
"It makes no sense. I think it is absolutely undesirable for the country's aluminium output to double over the next 10 years," Mr Bermann adds.
Brazil, he points out, is going back to being a producer of primary goods, without adding value.
"And it is precisely the production of primary goods that needs a lot of energy and generates few jobs."
Preparatory work for the construction of the Teles Pires dam to be built on the Teles Pires river, a tributary of the Tapajos, has already led to the bulldozing of land around the Sete Quedas (Seven Waterfalls) - an area considered sacred by the Munduruku and other indigenous people.
In an open letter, Munduruku leaders complained: "There are funerary urns there, where our ancient warriors are buried. There is also a portal, only seen by spiritual shaman leaders, who can travel through it to another, unknown world."
"Why have they destroyed this?" one cacique asked.
For others, however, progress cannot be halted.
Joao Francisco Vieira, a local councillor in the town of Jacareacanga, told the BBC: "The Indians don't want to go back 300 years. They want to evolve, as the river flows to the sea. They want mobile phones. They want the internet."
Maria Leusa Kaba Munduruku agrees that they want modern goods.
"But we want them while conserving our culture. That is possible and we will fight for it." | "If these dams are built, everything will end," says Lamberto Painha, one of the chiefs of the Munduruku tribe in Brazil's Amazon region. | 27834240 |
Kajsa Tylen, 38, from Nottingham, is intending to ride about 36,000 miles (58,000km).
Her mother, Tina Tylen, 65, will travel as back-up with a caravan during the challenge across Europe.
Mustafa Sarkar, a sports psychologist, said having her mother alongside could be a key factor in breaking the 77-year-old record.
Ms Tylen, who is originally from Sweden, felt inspired after reading about Billie Fleming who pedalled for 29,603 miles (47,641km) in 1938, to encourage others to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
Tina Tylen retired from her job at Specsavers and has since been planning her role in the journey.
The two have not always been so close.
"I moved out of home when I was 16 and we have both lived a fair distance apart since then," said Kajsa Tylen.
"We both worked abroad for a while too and didn't really talk much then either."
Tina Tylen later moved in with her daughter in Nottingham, which Kajsa said was "tough" to begin with.
"Once we got to know one another again, it worked out well. She [now] knows to feed me if I start getting tetchy."
Dr Sarkar said: "Having her mum by her side will definitely help.
"A crucial part of motivation is about relatedness, the feeling of support.
"Messages from her mum will have to be positive but she will also have to allow [Kajsa] to persevere herself. Knowing she's by her side will be important."
The cyclist said she had been boosted by "incredible" support for the challenge which begins on New Year's Day at Leisure Lakes Bikes in Breaston.
This has included promises of places to stay, offers of food and bike maintenance, as well as ferry tickets when she reaches Denmark, and messages from people on social media.
"Sense of purpose is important" - Dr Mustafa Sarkar, Nottingham Trent University
"One of the key aspects will be motivation. Her reason of wanting to motivate other people to exercise and this sense of purpose will be really important.
"Some people do [big challenges] for the wrong reasons. [Her own motivation] will really help drive her.
"The notion of self-talk, what she is going to say to herself throughout the challenge, will be important. There will be critical points especially during difficult moments where self-talk will be key.
"This personal link of wanting to motivate other people to exercise will give her a sense of purpose and might help drive her on especially during difficult moments of the challenge." | A cyclist is beginning her attempt to break a long-standing long distance cycling challenge over the next year. | 35025075 |
Warnings have been issued in more than 40 provinces in Spain, with a red alert for the southern city of Cordoba.
Neighbouring Portugal has also placed four regions on an orange alert, the second highest level possible.
Both countries have warned that the searing heat will substantially increase the risk of forest fires.
Nearly all of Spain faced an "extreme" or high risk of forest fires on Monday.
"These are not usual meteorological phenomena," said a spokesperson of the country's national weather office, as quoted by the AFP news agency.
They warned that the exceptional temperatures posed "a very high level of risk for the population".
The Spanish cities of Cordoba, Seville and Toledo were some of the worst affected on Monday. Temperatures were expected to reach up to 44C in some areas.
In Seville, some people jumped off bridge to swim in the city's Guadalquivir river to try and escape the heat, according to AFP.
Spain's Guardia Civil urged people to drink at least three litres (five pints) of water a day and to avoid eating hot meals.
The heatwave is expected to spread, prompting concern in France and in the UK.
In 2003, a heatwave led to 70,000 more deaths than usual across Europe.
"I don't think this heatwave will have the same consequences as the one in 2003 because we weren't as prepared at that time," said French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal.
The high temperatures are expected to last at least until the end of the week.
The body's normal core temperature is 37-38C.
If it heats up to 39-40C, the brain tells the muscles to slow down and fatigue sets in. At 40-41C heat exhaustion is likely - and above 41C the body starts to shut down.
Chemical processes start to be affected, the cells inside the body deteriorate and there is a risk of multiple organ failure.
The body cannot even sweat at this point because blood flow to the skin stops, making it feel cold and clammy.
Heatstroke - which can occur at any temperature over 40C - requires professional medical help and if not treated immediately, chances of survival can be slim.
There are a number of things people can do to help themselves. These include:
What happens to the body in extreme heat?
Eight low-tech ways to keep cool in a heatwave | A heatwave in Spain and Portugal has triggered alerts across the region, with temperatures soaring above 40C and warnings of risks to residents' health. | 33316985 |
Yahoo owns a 43% stake in China's Alibaba group, which it acquired in 2005 for $1bn (£636m), and a part of Yahoo Japan.
It had been negotiating a complex swap-deal that was expected to save it billions of dollars in taxes.
However, various reports indicated that no agreement had been reached.
"I think the deal is either dead or it's going to take a lot longer to complete, which means we don't have a near-term catalyst; hence the selloff," said Brett Harris, an analyst with Gabelli & Co.
The stalemate in talks has come as a huge surprise.
Analysts and industry experts had expected the deal to be formalised, not least because trading in Alibaba's shares at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has been suspended since 9 February.
The reported failure of the talks is a big blow for Yahoo, which has been seeking to restructure its operations in a bid to boost its flagging fortunes.
The swap-deal, worth almost $17bn according to some estimates, was not only expected to save taxes, but also provide Yahoo with billions of dollars in cash.
Analysts said unless an agreement is reached soon, Yahoo may see its problems escalate further.
"The honeymoon is already over,'' said Colin Gillis an analyst with BGC Financial. "Yahoo is probably looking at another year of turmoil.''
To make matters more complicated, Daniel Loeb, of hedge fund ThirdPoint, which owns more than 5% of Yahoo, launched a campaign to install his own directors on the firm's board.
"Installing the hand-picked choices of the current board does nothing to allay investor fears that Yahoo is poised to repeat the errors of its past,'' Mr Loeb wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr Loeb's move comes just days after Yahoo announced changes to the board after Chairman Roy Bostock and three board members quit.
Their exit followed that of Jerry Yang, Yahoo's co-founder, who resigned from its board last month.
Yahoo said it had sought suggestions for new directors from several shareholders.
"We have received constructive suggestions from several of our major shareholders and, therefore, it is especially disappointing that Mr. Loeb has chosen a potentially disruptive path, just as the company is moving forward under new leadership to aggressively increase the value of Yahoo,'' the firm said in a statement. | Shares of Yahoo Japan fell 5% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on reports that talks regarding the swap of Yahoo's Asian assets had hit a stalemate. | 17037056 |
The trunk road drops from 150m (492ft) to 20m (65ft) as it enters a valley at the Berriedale Braes.
Transport Minister Derek Mackay has confirmed that a number of objections have been received to the initial proposals for the improvements.
Last month, Caithness Chamber of Commerce said it was taking too long to agree a plan of action.
Transport Scotland said it was continuing to progress the design work.
The A9 provides a link to the far north mainland coast and the ferry services at Scrabster, Gills Bay and John O'Groats to Orkney. | A public local inquiry is likely to be held into plans to improve a hairpin bend on the A9 in Caithness. | 34050457 |
More than 1,800 cases are waiting to be processed by police, data collated by 5 Live Investigates has shown.
The most serious example, in Wiltshire, saw at least one case being delayed by more than 21 months.
Home Office minister Karen Bradley said the government had "prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat".
Hi-tech crime units deal with the retrieval and examination of data from computers, mobile phones and other media devices, such as illegal images or details of inappropriate conversations with minors.
The evidence can be crucial in securing convictions against those who groom and abuse young people online.
More than half of the 40 UK police forces that responded to a Freedom of Information request from the programme reported delays of at least three months. Cases were "waiting to be allocated" to a member of staff in the hi-tech crime unit for analysis.
Five forces held devices that had not been examined after more than a year of the case being reported.
In Scotland, the oldest unallocated case dated back 10 months, in Wales, seven months, and in Northern Ireland, 18 months.
Louise began speaking online to a 35-year-old man when she was 13. He began to groom her and attempted to persuade her to visit him in person.
When her mother Amy alerted the police, she was astonished to be told it would take six months before forensic examination of her daughter's laptop and phone could begin.
"I was horrified, because what could they be doing in the six months?" she said.
The family eventually waited 10 months for police to examine the evidence, but the case was dropped after they said Louise's phone no longer worked.
"How they can't get the phone to work in today's day and age I don't know. God forbid [the abuser] has done something to anyone else," Amy added.
Both names have been changed to protect their identity.
In July, a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) found delays of 12 months were "not uncommon", after examining 124 cases at random in six police forces.
It concluded such delays "increase the risk to children", with suspected offenders released on bail for prolonged periods of time while evidence was analysed.
Families of children who had been abused online said the failure by police to launch a full and immediate investigation into every case had left paedophiles free to continue their abuse.
Det Supt Guy Collins, of Lincolnshire Police, told the programme it was struggling to cope with the demand for hi-tech investigations into child sexual exploitation. It had a backlog of 10 months.
"We have to prioritise, that's the sad reality of life. We can't do everything straightaway," he explained.
He added that incidents involving high-risk suspects were always dealt with more swiftly than others, but admitted this meant other cases could be pushed back in the queue.
"It is a matter of absolute regret that we can't do all of those [cases] as quickly as we'd like to, but we do work very hard to protect children," he said.
Lincolnshire Police, like a number of forces, is now allocating additional resources to its hi-tech crime unit.
Karen Bradley, minister for preventing abuse and exploitation, said the government was "committed to ensuring police have the resources they need, and have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat".
She said the Child Abuse Image Database, launched in December 2014, "will reduce the time taken to identify illegal images".
5 live Investigates is broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live, Sunday 8 November at 11:00. Listen online or download the programme podcast. | Hi-tech police crime units dealing with incidents of suspected child abuse have developed a backlog of cases, the BBC has learned. | 34713745 |
The trouble began on Monday after council contractors removed material from an anti-internment bonfire in the Markets area, near the city centre.
On Tuesday night, North Queen St was closed for a time due to a car on fire.
The road is near a bonfire in the New Lodge and it is understood a number of petrol bombs were thrown on the road.
However, police said the road had reopened to traffic shortly after 23:00 BST and was "passable with care".
Bonfires are traditionally lit in some republican areas to mark the anniversary of the introduction of internment - detention without trial - on 9 August 1971.
Council worker injured
Belfast City Council recently passed a motion to say that contractors would remove material from bonfire that posed a risk to safety.
However, on Tuesday evening the council told the BBC that it no longer has a contractor in place.
On Monday, shortly after material was taken away from a bonfire in the Markets, a number of parked cars were set on fire and petrol bombs, stones and other missiles were thrown at police.
Later that evening, trouble spread to other areas and a disused credit union building was set on fire in west Belfast.
Belfast City Council staff have also been targeted and on Tuesday, the council confirmed that one of its workers had been injured when a stone was thrown at a council vehicle.
The member of staff received a cut to the head when the windscreen of their vehicle was smashed.
A council spokesperson said it was one of two separate incidents in which stones were thrown at its vehicles.
It also confirmed that some street cleansing and commercial waste collections were restricted in the Markets, New Lodge and Divis areas on Tuesday.
Community centres in the New Lodge, Divis and Markets areas closed to the public at 17:00 BST.
In a statement about Monday's attacks, the PSNI said officers had dealt with "localised disorder caused by a small group of people" - some as young as 12 - in the Markets, New Lodge and North Queen Street areas.
Police are gathering evidence to bring those involved before the courts.
They have also appealed for parents to be aware of their children's whereabouts.
Police helped the fire service to deal with Monday night's blaze, which started at about 21:00 BST at the former credit union on Ross Road in west Belfast.
A bus was also damaged on the Falls Road a few hours later.
Supt Andrea McMullan said: "I would like to reassure the public that police patrols across Belfast will be increased over the coming days in an effort to curb this violence.
"I would also call on those with influence in local communities to exert some control in an effort to dissuade any repetition of this behaviour."
She described the attacks as "senseless and unacceptable".
"It achieves nothing - creating only inconvenience, disruption and misery for the local community," she added.
On Monday afternoon, three cars were destroyed after they were set on fire and five other vehicles were damaged by stones and paint in the Markets.
Later in the evening about 100 young people, including children aged 12, gathered in the area.
Alliance councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown described the scenes in Belfast as "disgraceful" and said they must be "condemned in the strongest terms".
"The responsibility for last night's behaviour rests solely with the people who carried it out," he told BBC Radio Ulster.
"The agreement to remove materials was agreed by all parties and I think this is not the first test of the issue."
Sinn Féin councillor Deirdre Hargey said residents in the Markets area were "completely disgusted" at the trouble.
"They don't want this and those involved in this disgusting behaviour are not representative of this community," she added.
Ms Hargey said she did not expect the level of anti-social behaviour and vandalism and did not believe it was "completely linked" to Belfast City Council's decision to tackle dangerous bonfires.
"There have been ongoing incidents and I think a large part of those who have been involved in incidents either in the Markets, or especially in Divis, are involved in vandalism every other day of the year," she added.
End of Twitter post by @PoliceServiceNI
"They have just used this as an opportunity or an excuse to carry out this type of behaviour that they do every other day."
She said she was concerned that there were "older, more sinister elements involved in trying to encourage younger people into this activity", but did not think they were dissident republicans.
End of Twitter post 2 by @PoliceServiceNI
On Twitter, the PSNI also "thanked those in affected communities who helped settle tensions" on Monday evening.
Meanwhile, a bonfire has been rebuilt close to the New Lodge flats, on Queen Street in north Belfast, despite weeks of efforts to remove pallets and other bonfire material from the neighbourhood.
Youths were pictured posing atop of rows of pallets stacked on the bonfire, which was expected to be lit later on Tuesday. | Extra police patrols are being deployed in Belfast after a series of attacks on officers, cars and property by youths in nationalist areas of the city. | 40856210 |
People attending the festival on Anglesey on Monday were asked to take shuttle buses to the Bodedern Maes from the Anglesey Show ground at Mona.
But some visitors complained of waiting up to two hours for a bus.
Eisteddfod chief executive Elfed Roberts had urged visitors to "be patient".
He said the change was a "temporary measure" to conserve the ground.
"The rain yesterday was horrendous, that's what was at fault," Mr Roberts added.
"There are people complaining that there is some mud on the Maes, I don't think that any field anywhere would have coped with what we got last night.
"We all need to be patient, we need to calm down and not panic."
The shuttle bus system will stay in place on Tuesday.
Blue badge holders should park in Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern, with a system in place to bring people to and from the Maes. | Organisers of the National Eisteddfod have apologised for delays following a decision to shut the main car park after it became waterlogged. | 40848302 |
He has been enjoying a first year off in a career which has spanned more than a quarter of a century, starting with his United debut in 1990 and coming to a temporary halt when he left the club as a coach 12 months ago.
Giggs has since been linked with several managerial vacancies - Sunderland and Middlesbrough among the most recent - and he was interviewed for the Swansea City job last October.
And while the Welshman has distanced himself from most speculation, there is one managerial post to which his name always appears to be closely connected: his country.
Chris Coleman has said the current World Cup campaign will be his last in charge of Wales, prompting many to suggest Giggs as his successor.
But when he is asked about the subject, Giggs is as fleet of foot as he was on the Old Trafford turf.
"With Cookie still in the job, I know what he said, but he could change his mind and carry on. So I think it's unfair to comment on that," he says.
"But he's done a great job, got some talented players there at the moment and I think the focus with Wales at the moment will be just winning those next four games and getting to the World Cup."
OK, then, leaving Coleman out of the equation for now, theoretically, would Giggs at least want to manage Wales one day?
"I've seen Mark Hughes do it, Cookie [Coleman] do it, Gary Speed do it. It is a good job," he adds, still not giving an inch.
"And I think, when you are a coach, in my experience United would be a great job and coaching your country. Whether it be soon or in 10 or 15 years' time, we'll just have to wait and see."
At this point, Giggs bursts into laughter, admitting with a mischievous grin: "I've not given you an answer there, have I?"
You can understand why Giggs is reluctant to state outright his ambition of managing Wales.
He considers Coleman a friend and would not like to be seen to be eyeing his job.
Besides, if Wales' players and other coaches had their way, Coleman would change his mind and lead them beyond this campaign.
"That's totally up to Cookie. What he's done for Welsh football is remarkable," says Giggs.
"The whole team just captured the imagination at the (2016) Euros and a large part of that is down to him. The team he's built, the character he is, the team spirit.
"Teams are very much a shadow of the manager and I think this Welsh team is, knowing Chris as well I do, because he is larger than life, he is a great character, a great person to be around, but also a serious football man."
As someone who has spent more than half of his life as a professional player or coach, Giggs is also very much a "serious football man".
But the success and all-consuming nature of his playing career means he is happy to spend some time away from the sport's firing line.
And although a year out may mean a clean break from your profession for most, football has still featured prominently in Giggs' sabbatical-of-sorts.
"Life's good. I've just completed my first year without football and it's been good," he says.
"I've been really busy doing some TV work for the Euros when I finished, then I went to India playing futsal, then a bit more punditry, doing some work for Uefa as a technical observer, which is good keeping me in football, and then just doing the normal dad stuff, watching your son play football, and watching Salford City, who I'm co-owner of. So it's been really busy and really good.
"You find out there's a whole big old world out there outside football, so I'm enjoying it.
"I think the pressure you put yourself under, be it as a player or a coach, that pressure's sort of come off. It's a strange feeling but it's good.
"I'm exactly where I was last summer, more or less got the next six months planned but, with the chance if a club does come in and want to talk, then I can do that."
While being football-centric, what the last 12 months have given Giggs is some time away from the pressure cooker of the Premier League and its myriad, relentless demands.
That breathing space has allowed the Welshman to contemplate his options, speak to former managers - Sir Alex Ferguson most regularly - and also learn from coaches of other sports.
"Rugby is a big love for me because my dad [Danny Wilson] played rugby and I'm a rugby fan, whether it be league or union," Giggs says.
"I know Rob Howley [former Wales and British and Irish Lions scrum-half and current assistant coach], I've met Warren Gatland [Wales and Lions head coach], I've spent an evening next to Eddie Jones [England head coach], who was constantly asking me about football - it was brilliant.
"I was asking him all about his coaching career, but he was asking me more about football and Sir Alex."
Giggs appears to be refreshed by his time off, chatting excitedly about the previous 12 months and his future managerial career.
So does a 'gap year' like this revitalise one's passion for football?
"I think it does," Giggs says.
"It's brilliant I can step out because I was two years as a coach, you're constantly putting yourself under pressure, you're always thinking how you can improve the team, so to step away from it and be a bit more relaxed, you can look at things in a different way.
"I think I am ready [to return] but, also, I'm enjoying life and busy doing other stuff. If it happens then great, I'm ready because I've prepared myself as best I could with all my badges and the two years under Louis [van Gaal] at United.
"Whether that be in the lower leagues or a foreign club, I don't know. I honestly don't know and that's exciting for me because I've enjoyed this last year. But at some stage, I'm sure I will be back in football, coaching or managing." | A little over a decade has passed since Ryan Giggs' final game for Wales yet, even at 43 years old, the former Manchester United winger can still be devilishly elusive. | 40636168 |
Fifteen people, including the bombers, died and more than 35 were injured in the attacks at a mosque and house of vigilante leader, they said.
More than 100 people died in similar attacks in the city two weeks ago.
Maiduguri is where Boko Haram Islamist militants were first based when they began their insurgency six years ago.
Some 17,000 people are said to have been killed in that time and attacks by the group have intensified since Muhammadu Buhari became president in May, vowing to defeat the insurgents.
The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar in the capital, Abuja, says people were waiting for the final evening prayers when three suicide bombers struck the mosque.
The girl carrying the fourth bomb ran off into the nearby bush where her explosives detonated, killing her.
The vigilante leader was not at home when a suicide attacker struck his house, our reporter says.
Witnesses and security sources said the children were aged between nine and 15.
Earlier reports said all five of the bombers were girls.
Our correspondent says the attacks in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, come as the military says it is winning the war against Boko Haram.
In June, the military's headquarters were moved to the city as President Buhari wanted to centralise operations against the militants.
This year, the security forces have reclaimed most of the territory captured by Boko Haram fighters and freed a number of people kidnapped by the militant group.
But the boosted regional multinational force - central to Mr Buhari's strategy in defeating the militants - has not yet started operations in earnest because of reported funding difficulties, our reporter says.
Mr Buhari has given his newly appointed security chiefs until mid-November to defeat the fighters, who now have ties with Islamic State group.
More than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April 2014 from the town of Chibok in Borno state have also yet to be found.
Using football to tackle Boko Haram
Who are Boko Haram? | Five children, four girls and one boy, were behind a series of blasts in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Thursday, sources say. | 34423311 |
Honeyman, 21, initially joined the Tynesiders in October and has since made three league appearances, scoring once against Boreham Wood.
Gateshead will have the Prudhoe-born player eligible for selection in the FA Trophy, which begins in December.
He made his Black Cats debut in last season's FA Cup defeat by League One side Bradford City. | Sunderland midfielder George Honeyman has extended his stay at National League side Gateshead until 2 January. | 34833945 |
The descriptions of the grey smog that's hung over the city get more and more extreme: "Airmageddon", the "Airpocalypse".
Walking out into Beijing's streets is like plunging into a swirling soup. The pollution swathes the city, wreathing everything in grey.
To get a sense of it, take a look at this slideshow of before and after pictures that give a sense of what China's toxic sky is really like.
A combination of coal emissions, dirty diesel and industrial gases, the smog has smothered everything for days. On Thursday, levels still hovered around the "very unhealthy" mark.
As the official Xinhua news agency reported, more flights were delayed at Tianjin close to Beijing. Visibility in Shandong province south of Beijing was just 50m (164ft).
On Thursday, too, there were reported to be more than 100 cars in crashes in Beijing. The roads were icy and slippery, but poor visibility cannot have helped.
What were billed as "tough" measures brought in by Beijing's government this week to try to improve things simply have not been enough.
On Tuesday, 103 factories were ordered to shut down, and a third of government cars ordered off the roads to combat what was already being described as the worst January smog since 1954.
But even state-controlled media now say Beijing's tough measures were ignored by city officials themselves.
More than 800 government vehicles ordered off the roads were still in use, and several construction sites ordered suspended were still active on Wednesday, Xinhua reported.
So everyone now is looking at the weather forecast, hoping the smog will be blown away by winds forecast for Friday.
That's about the only thing that will bring some respite.
A bigger question will linger even after the smog has cleared: can China curb its polluting ways for good?
January's pollution has afflicted not just Beijing and its 20 million people, but more than 30 major cities and many tens of millions of people in addition.
As the Communist Party's English-language tabloid the Global Times put it in an editorial on Thursday: "China's rapid development has brought us many benefits as well as accumulated many problems. Environmental protection should take up a more prominent position in China's future strategy even if it means that China's economic development will slow down."
"Chinese people," the paper said, "should not tolerate environmental pollution for the pursuit of wealth... We cannot keep going with the situation that we have today."
The difficult bit is how to change the path China is on.
On the plus side, then, there is a growing realisation things have to change, and the media are now being allowed to debate the issue.
China's government seems to be in agreement. This week the cabinet approved an energy consumption "control target" for energy use by 2015.
On the minus side, that "control target" still means China's energy use will continue to expand, and, crucially, so will the burning of coal.
As Xinhua reported: "to meet the target, average annual energy consumption growth should be controlled at around 4.3% between 2011 and 2015, lower than the 6.6-percent annual increase realized between 2006 and 2010".
That means more emissions to come.
And as if to prove that changing China's habits will be hard, there is another worry on the immediate horizon.
Chinese New Year is just days away. Letting off vast quantities of fireworks is part of the Spring Festival celebrations, but the fireworks produce huge amounts of pollution.
"Setting off fireworks contributed greatly to air pollution in Beijing for half a month after Spring Festival in 2011," according to Du Shaozhong, former deputy director of Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.
Eight million people had already posted messages on China's Weibo microblogs this week debating whether the fireworks should be stopped this year.
But the office in charge of Beijing's firework industry has said that residents can set off fireworks during the Spring Festival holiday according to the regulations, but that the office hopes residents will refrain from doing so, the China Daily reported.
I predict more smog. | All week in Beijing, in offices and homes, in lifts and shops, restaurants, taxis and buses, one topic has dominated conversation - Beijing's foul air. | 21272328 |
Despite their differences over Brexit and the legacy of the Troubles, the DUP and Sinn Féin maintained remarkable discipline after first the UUP, then the SDLP decided to leave the executive.
Until mid-December, the two parties' joint approach also extended to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal.
When a BBC Spotlight investigation into the RHI affair stirred widespread public concern, both parties appeared to be making progress behind the scenes in arranging some kind of an investigation. This would have supplemented the Public Accounts Committee which had been taking evidence on the scandal since September.
But after former DUP minister Jonathan Bell broke ranks on a Nolan TV special on 15 December those attempts to manage the crisis within the walls of Stormont Castle broke down.
Then came the disastrous assembly sitting of 19 December, when the DUP decided to override Sinn Féin's concerns, pressing ahead with an Arlene Foster statement against Martin McGuinness's express wishes.
On the day, Sinn Féin's warning of "grave consequences" looked like the party might just be crying wolf. But in reality the die was cast, as republican grassroots anger grew.
The former Northern Ireland Secretary Lord Hain reckons Arlene Foster's handling of the fall-out from the scandal has been a "textbook case of how not to manage a crisis". Certainly the DUP has appeared to be caught napping by the speed with which this affair developed - offering concessions, expressions of regret or offers of inquiries too late to appease its critics.
The heating scandal has ignited the election, but will the battle ahead be a referendum on the RHI scandal as the Stormont opposition wants?
For different reasons, both the DUP and Sinn Féin are keen on widening the battleground.
The DUP is framing the contest as an attempt to "take Arlene Foster down" and to push through investigations which would put soldiers and police officers in the dock over controversial Troubles killings.
Sinn Féin say it's all about the DUP's arrogance and the failure of both the DUP and the UK government to deliver on commitments in relation to the former jail at Maze/Long Kesh, the treatment of the Irish language and the logjam over the legacy of the troubles.
Over and above these policy matters, it look likely that any fresh talks on the other side of the election will have to consider potential structural changes at Stormont.
Should the mandatory coalition, whereby all the major parties have a right to be in government, be abandoned in favour of a more conventional voluntary coalition? Should weighted majority voting be introduced?
Should Northern Ireland have two joint first ministers rather than a first and deputy first?
Should there be radical changes to the petition of concern system which has led to frequent cross-community vetoes? In the light of Brexit, are the cross-border institutions created under the Good Friday Agreement in need of reform?
All this looks like the stuff of talks which will last far longer than the three weeks the law allows to form a new executive after the March election.
Whilst the major parties may talk about all this and more, expect their critics to use the campaign ahead to remind voters what brought Stormont down.
It seems hard to imagine that the DUP and Sinn Féin won't emerge again as the main players. But we won't know until the votes are counted exactly what impact the negative publicity generated by the heating scandal has had on public opinion and party allegiance.
Could a shift in opinion, for example, endanger the DUP's power to veto measures without requiring the assistance of other parties, for which 30 MLAs are required?
That point might be rendered academic if there is no Stormont assembly in which to wield a petition of concern.
Nevertheless the public can have their say in this election, even if it is only to determine the relative weights the parties will be able to throw around in the potentially protracted negotiations coming up. | Although the assembly has wound down with almost clockwork-like inevitability, it should not be forgotten that the breakdown of Stormont wasn't pre-determined. | 38648957 |
In a paper looking at female genital cosmetic surgery, it says women and girls should realise that female genitalia come in all shapes and sizes.
They should also be told of the risks of this type of surgery.
Labiaplasties on the NHS have risen fivefold in the past 10 years.
Labiaplasty is the most common type of female genital cosmetic surgery, in which the size of the labia minora is reduced.
It can be a treatment for women who have concerns with hygiene, difficulties during sexual intercourse or discomfort when exercising, but some women and girls want surgery because of concerns about the way their genitalia look.
In extreme cases this can be linked to body dysmorphic disorder, which causes significant anxieties about body image.
Statistics show that more than 2,000 labiaplasty operations were performed in 2010 on the NHS.
Many more are carried out by private clinics but there are no figures available on these procedures, although the RCOG says "the practice of labiaplasty is now widespread".
Dame Suzi Leather, chair of the RCOG's ethics committee, said there was concern over the recent figures.
"Some women are requesting it solely for cosmetic reasons and these decisions are not always being made on an informed understanding of the normal variations that exist, but influenced by images from popular culture and the pornography industry.
"We need to inform women that everyone is unique and that variation in appearance is normal in the vast majority of cases," she said.
The RCOG paper recommends that women should be offered counselling and psychological treatment for problems such as "body image distress".
The paper says: "Education, support and advice should be at the heart of clinical practice, with a sympathetic appreciation of female body insecurities."
Official stats show that the labiaplasty procedure is not restricted to adults. In the past five years, 266 of these procedures have been carried out on girls under 14.
While the reasons for the procedures are unknown, they are likely to have been performed for medical reasons or to correct congenital abnormalities.
In another paper, published by the British Society for Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology (BritSPAG), clinicians are advised to inform girls under 18 that labiaplasty surgery before puberty is complete can lead to long-term problems.
Although no research has been carried out on these long-term risks, it is thought that damage to sexual function and sensitivity can occur after labiaplasty. Bleeding and wound infection can also occur in the short term.
The paper also recommends that girls showing signs of psychological problems should be referred to a paediatric clinical psychologist.
Consultant plastic surgeon Paul Banwell, from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, welcomed the recommendations published in both papers and said patients should always be given full, accurate information and be properly counselled before surgery.
But he said clinicians should also be sensitive to potential problems.
"An asymmetrical labia can lead to functional problems as well as aesthetic problems. Over 50% of my patients see me due to functional reasons. Only a small proportion are there for purely aesthetic reasons."
He also said he had seen the number of patients requesting labiaplasty increase dramatically in the past few years.
Tim Goodacre, head of professional standards at the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons and a consultant plastic surgeon, said he supported the recommendations as a means of improving patient care.
"We would like to see tougher central regulation of the cosmetic surgery industry to help clamp down on anyone performing these operations unnecessarily, and without due consideration for patient care."
But he said he found attempts to increase profits by encouraging more female genital procedures "abhorrent".
He added: "We urge stringent and robust restrictions on advertising such operations with a firm objective to limit any material other than that with information only. All advertising that could in any way be seen as persuasive should be banned." | "Designer vagina" surgery should not be carried out on the NHS or on girls under the age of 18, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said. | 24942981 |
Whatever bridges have been or are being built, Brussels' day of terror threatens to blow them all away. And that, to be sure, is exactly what the attackers in Zaventem airport and the Brussels subway meant to do.
As the police sirens wailed around my office all morning, I was overwhelmed, rendered speechless.
That was not the case for everyone. Was it just the temptation to vent anger, or a pent-up polarisation, that filled Twitter and Facebook with such noxious opinion? Sweeping generalisations, calls for exclusion, purging, a police state.
Like whiplash after a collision, first you hit the steering wheel, then you get thrown back - twice broken.
What we know so far
Why was Brussels attacked?
Victims and survivors
I have no way to know what is inside the heads - let alone the hearts - of the bombers, though the signposts seem clear enough. They don't wage war, but they sow terror, fear, mistrust. "Will I take the metro to get to the station?" "What's that large suitcase doing there?" "Does that man look suspicious?"
Division. Rage, and rage combined with fear and suspicion, makes hatred.
Terrorists know exactly how to fix a deadly cocktail, but are the rest of us compelled to drink it? Those who are now calling for an iron-fisted response to knock "the Other" senseless, are screaming out their impotence: their inability to comprehend this inhuman violence, but also their incomprehension of why this violence can exist.
We all share that inability and incomprehension today. The hate that comes with it, for some, at its worst creates for the low-minded a chance for political opportunism.
What we need are bridges and oneness. We should embrace everybody who rejects political violence. We need everyone.
Today the urgencies precede the nuances: we must care for the wounded, avert the imminent threat, bury the dead, clear the rubble. But the next task is to avoid having the wedge that the terrorist exploded into our society be driven deeper and steadier by angry citizens.
We urgently need an effective answer to violent radicalisation. Some people have been working on finding that answer, but we need it faster - as soon as we discard our torn garb, admit and acknowledge our grief, focus our anger and face the damage.
The work that lies in front of us is wide-ranging, but it should involve us all. It is easier to formulate the mission than to execute it, but we know that we cannot move forward without starting, immediately, by building a consensus around that mission, in order to make the reaction to these attacks inclusive instead of divisive.
The first priority of our governments - and we have lots of them in little Belgium - is to guarantee an effective security for all citizens, with all the resources that takes.
Those same governments should also as a priority invest in the society they have to protect: in trust, in the opportunity to have a future, in spaces of encounter, in democratic debate, in the belief that every call to defend "our values" does literally concern every citizen.
Our leaders must stand tall and adopt the manner of then Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg following Anders Breivik's attacks in 2012: "We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values. Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity. We will answer hatred with love."
Terror aims first at citizens, but they need not be solely its first victims; they can become the first responders. The unity we need embraces disagreement, because the society we need and want to defend is democratic, pluralistic and diverse.
We might understand today that ugly prejudices seep through the fissures that the attacks created in the social fabric, but tomorrow people of all persuasions and inspirations should join hands to mend both the fissures and the prejudices.
We urgently need new scaffolding to repair the bombed bridges and to reconstruct a (better) way of living together.
Words that are drenched in vitriol today are multiplied by social networks - those which always function, even when roads are blocked, trains stand still and mobile networks fail. They must be washed clean so they can be re-used for better purposes.
E pluribus unum, reads the United States seal: "one from many", unity from diversity. That is what Belgium, and the whole world, needs.
Belgium's motto is "Unity makes strength". Let us build that strength and use it to make this world both safe and just, for everyone.
Because alone, one-legged, we will not be able to span the gap created by the terrorists in Brussels.
Gie Goris is editor-in-chief of MO* magazine, a Belgian print and online publication with a focus on global trends. He has been writing on culture, religion and conflict for more than 25 years, with special interest in Afghanistan and the broader region. | In an editorial I wrote on Monday, after a week of intense anti-terror activity in Brussels, I used an Uzbek proverb - "One man builds a bridge, a thousand men cross it" - to advocate an active, two-way engagement between Muslim communities in Brussels and the Belgian state. | 35882366 |
Mansfield 103.2 has reportedly been targeted eight times in the past month.
Outside broadcasts are being hijacked and replaced with The Winker's Song by comedy band Ivor Biggun.
The station said attempts to catch the culprit had so far failed and some listeners had complained "their children have started humming the song".
Station manager Tony Delahunty said the latest occasion was on Sunday when a live interview from the town's Party in the Market event was interrupted by a male voice shouting, then the song playing.
He said: "We have had calls from people who have found it hilarious, while some have raised their concerns, including our competitors, and a lot of people in the industry are aghast at how difficult it is to stop these people.
"For listeners under the age of 11 travelling to school, it can be a very offensive thing for them to hear, so I just want it to stop.
"But I would also love to see who it is and have them caught."
"There's absolutely nothing we can do," he continued.
"The first time we reported it to the police, but they said they would have to catch him in the act. Our transmitter people can't do anything because the person is using a mobile transmitter."
Ivor Biggun is fronted by Robert "Doc" Cox, best known for his appearances on BBC TV's That's Life programme. The band has released four albums of double-entendre filled songs.
Mr Delahunty said communications regulator Ofcom had tried to track the offender on three occasions but had so far also been unsuccessful.
A spokesperson said: "Ofcom takes malicious radio interference extremely seriously.
"Our Spectrum Engineering Officers are working closely with Mansfield 103.2 to trace and identify those responsible for these criminal activities."
They added maliciously causing interference was a criminal act that carries a maximum punishment of two years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine. | An adult-themed song has been played on a local radio station in a series of rogue broadcasts. | 40559523 |
The Communists' president, Guillermo Teillier admitted his party approved an armed operation targeting the late General Augusto Pinochet in 1986.
Five troops escorting the leader died and 11 were injured in the ambush.
Around 3,000 people disappeared or died in Chile between 1973 and 1990 and 30,000 are believed to have been tortured by the authorities.
In an interview with the Chilean newspaper La Tercera in April, Mr Teillier said his party had approved the failed attempt against Gen Pinochet's life and other armed operations in the 1980s.
It was "nothing more than a reaction" to what the government had been doing against the Communist leadership, Mr Teillier said.
The women taking legal action say they want him jailed for the deaths.
"We want justice and equality before the law, that's all we want," one of the widows told Chilean Radio Bio Bio.
The recent 40th anniversary of the 1973 coup headed by Gen Pinochet re-ignited nationwide debate about responsibilities and punishment for crimes committed during the period of military rule.
The daughters of an ally of the deposed leader Salvador Allende, former President Michelle Bachelet, and of a Pinochet assistant, Evelyn Matthei, are pitted against each other in next months presidential elections, which has heightened the country's political sensitivity further. | The widows of three Chilean soldiers have launched legal action against the country's Communist Party leader. | 24632722 |
Documents and computer equipment were seized from the Mossack Fonseca office, officials said on Twitter.
The attorney general's office said the Mossack Fonseca sign had been removed a day earlier and quoted an employee as saying the firm was moving.
The leak showed how some wealthy people use offshore companies to evade tax.
The raid was overseen by El Salvador's Attorney General Douglas Melendez.
Mossack Fonseca's El Salvador branch was able to provide "back office" functions for the firm's clients all over the world, according to a document posted on Twitter by the attorney general's office.
Local news website El Faro reported (in Spanish) that Salvadoreans had used Mossack Fonseca to buy property in the country without declaring the purchases to the Salvadorean authorities.
The firm has denied it has done anything wrong and says the information is being presented out of context.
Elsewhere: | Authorities in El Salvador have raided the offices of the Panama law firm at the centre of a massive data leak, the attorney general's office says. | 36002759 |
The semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (Isna) said the fire was in an "explosive materials production unit".
A pro-opposition website reported a huge blast near the Parchin military site, south-east of the capital, but this was not confirmed.
Parchin has been linked to Iran's controversial nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been given access to the complex since 2005.
Analysts say the IAEA suspects Iran of experimenting with explosives capable of triggering a nuclear weapon at Parchin.
The pro-reform website Sahamnews said the explosion on Sunday evening was so intense that windows of buildings 15km (nine miles) away were shattered.
The glare from the blast could also be seen from a great distance, the report added.
Isna, quoting Iran's defence industries organisation, said: "Unfortunately, due to the incident, two workers of this production unit lost their lives."
It gave no further details.
Last month, the IAEA said more activity had been conducted at the Parchin military base.
It said Iran had also missed a deadline to answer further questions about its nuclear programme.
Iran is in negotiations with six world powers on a permanent agreement over its nuclear industry.
The West suspects Iran of trying to develop a nuclear weapon but Iranian leaders insist they only want atomic energy.
Talks are focused on lifting Western sanctions in exchange for a scaling-back of Iran's uranium enrichment programme, and a deadline for the agreement has been set for 24 November. | A fire and explosion at a military explosives facility near the Iranian capital Tehran has left at least two people dead, reports say. | 29508534 |
The program, designed to make voting easier for disabled residents, is part of a five-county pilot in the north-western state.
The counties are voting to nominate candidates to replace David Wu, who resigned from the US House of Representatives amid a sex scandal.
Voters in Oregon have cast their ballots entirely by post since 2000.
As voting gets under way on Tuesday, election workers will canvass the five Oregon counties bearing iPads and portable printers, stopping at parks, community centres and nursing homes.
Residents do not officially "vote" on the tablet, but instead use software developed by Oregon's elections division to cast their ballot, which is then printed out to be mailed back to the state.
The pilot program is intended to replace older tools designed for accessible voting in Oregon, often laptops with modifications that were stored in two suitcases.
Voters with poor vision can adjust the font size and screen colours, or have the candidate names read off.
One of the first users of the iPad ballot was 75-year-old Lewis Crews, who has severe arthritis and avoided using a pen to mark his ballot.
"It's a lot simpler for me. I think it's a great setup they got," Mr Crews told the Associated Press news agency.
If the pilot programme is successful, state elections officials say they will make the technology available across Oregon.
Apple donated five iPads for the scheme, and the state spent about $75,000 (£46,700) to develop the necessary software.
Oregon would need at least 72 iPads to make it a state-wide program, according to Steve Trout, state elections director.
That would bring the total cost for the computers to about $36,000, with a smaller total for the portable printers.
In its last two budgets, Oregon spent more than $325,000 on accessible voting tools. | Residents in parts of the US state of Oregon are to cast their votes by iPad during a special election on Tuesday. | 15631612 |
A third of people surveyed by housing charity Cymorth Cymru said health problems contributed to them losing their home.
Seven recommendations have been made to health boards, landlords and councils to ensure better support.
The Welsh Government said it welcomed the report and would consider its recommendations.
The charity - an umbrella body for providers of housing support and social care services - analysed responses from 332 homeless people from 21 out of 22 local authority areas.
It was commissioned by the Welsh Government to look at the experiences of people who had slept rough, stayed in a hostel or B&B, stayed with friends or relatives, or applied to the council as homeless.
A third of the sample stated their homelessness was caused, at least in part, by a health problem, when drug or alcohol problems were included as part of a broadly defined health issue.
Nearly a quarter who were admitted to hospital said they were discharged to the streets or "unsuitable accommodation".
More than two-thirds of respondents had not had a hepatitis B or flu vaccination and half the eligible female respondents did not have cervical smears or breast examinations on a regular basis.
Waiting times, the inability to make an appointment, as well as drug and alcohol problems are some of the factors which prevent people from accessing health services, the report said.
Cymorth Cymru director Katie Dalton said the results suggested poor health was a cause as well as an effect of homelessness.
"People can start to experience a physical or mental health problem and that can impact on their ability to engage in employment - they could see their income reduce or stop, not be able to afford their rent or mortgage and lose their home," she said.
"We know that around 30% of people who are homeless saw their health get worse in the past 12 months and that many of them face barriers to accessing a range of health services that could have prevented that deterioration from happening."
Recommendations
Ms Dalton added: "It's really important that we think more creatively to improve those health stats in future… this isn't necessarily about more resources - it's about being smarter.
"Significant proportions of homeless people use emergency departments and ambulances to access hospital - we believe that if early intervention was working, those people could be prevented from needing those services and reduce pressure on the NHS.
"We actually found that 63% of people who filled out the questionnaire didn't have a drug or alcohol problem - that's probably in contrast to what public perception is around substance misuse."
A Welsh Government spokesman said: "We continue to work closely with Public Health Wales, health boards, local authorities and homelessness organisations to ensure appropriate services are planned and delivered to meet the health needs of homeless people and those at risk of homelessness." | Homeless people are struggling to access healthcare, according to a new Wales-wide report. | 40731892 |
The 32-year-old former Warwickshire seamer's last first-team appearance for the Hove side came in June 2014.
The right-armer took 199 wickets at an average of 32.38 in 63 first-class appearances for Sussex.
"It's been a frustrating 18 months. On the advice of the club's medical staff, I have decided not to pursue my first-class cricketing career," he said.
Anyon joined Sussex ahead of the 2010 campaign and became a consistent performer for their Championship side.
He took 55 first-class wickets at an average of 32.45 in 2011 and a further 50 at 28.64 in 2013.
Anyon also made 1,086 first-class runs during his spell with Sussex.
"I'm very fortunate to have played my best cricket at Sussex," he added.
"I'd like to make a special thank you to the medical staff and the Professional Cricketers' Association for all their help over the past 12 months. I wish the club success going forward." | Sussex bowler James Anyon has announced his retirement after failing to recover from a knee injury. | 35971910 |