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The explosion caused significant structural damage to the building in Baildon, near Bradford, west Yorks, police say.
Officers said a report had been received of someone tampering with the cash machine shortly before 04:00 BST.
A short time later a loud bang was reported and a silver Audi was seen.
The force was unable to say how much money had been stolen in the raid. | Residents have had to be temporarily re-homed after thieves blew up a post office cash machine causing significant damage to the building. | 36170419 |
Abdurraouf Eshati admitted collecting information for terrorist purposes.
The 29-year-old was sentenced at London's Old Bailey over the bid to get arms to the war-torn country.
The charge related to two documents on the purchase of ammunition and cargo plane hire.
Judge John Bevan QC said on Tuesday: "It's obvious that his involvement means that it was felt he could be trusted as a confidant in relation to large-scale arms supply."
Eshati was due to stand trial on Monday but changed his plea.
The court was told electronic documents found outlined a plan to send 1,100 tonnes of ammunition to Libya, via a contact in Italy, in support of the Zintan people of the eastern region.
During their investigation, police searched Eshati's room at Wrexham Islamic Cultural Centre where they found a number of letter-headed documents which were blank, apart from a stamp and a signature which the prosecution said was a forger's kit.
It is understood Eshati lived at the mosque and would occasionally lead prayers when no one else was available but he did not take any of the main prayer meetings.
Eshati was caught trying to get to France in the back of a lorry with 19 other people at the port of Dover in Kent on 30 November, last year.
On his mobile phone, police found an invoice from an arms supplier for the sale and delivery of ammunition to Tobruk in Libya and a document about chartering a cargo jet for £163,000 for use in Libya.
Eshati also had images on his phone of militia group activists, a beheading and armaments in action which, the prosecution said, showed his allegiance to the Zintan people.
On his arrest, he told police he had been in Britain since 2009 on a visa and later as an asylum seeker.
Eshati said his father had been a senior figure in the Gaddafi regime and was now in prison in Tripoli while his two brothers had been murdered. This, however, was a false claim.
On Monday, he admitted seeking leave to remain in the UK by deception on or before 14 December 2012, by falsely claiming he was at risk of persecution if returned to Libya.
Dr Ikram Shah from the Wrexham Islamic and Cultural Centre said in a statement the members want to disassociate themselves from Eshati's actions and added they feel betrayed by what he has done.
Speaking after the hearing, Det Ch Supt Terri Nicholson, head of operations at the Metropolitan Police's counter terrorism command, said: "There is no doubt trading arms in this way would endanger the lives of many Libyans, with the potential for use in other conflicts."
The Crown Prosecution Service said Eshati's arrest and the finding of these documents led to Italian authorities discovering large scale illegal arms supplies being imported from eastern Europe to conflict zones in Libya and other places. | A Libyan man who lived at a mosque in Wrexham and sometimes led prayers as an imam has been jailed for six years after admitting his part in a network plotting an £18.6m arms deal. | 34645263 |
Eamon Lynch, 39, from Wesley Street in Derry admitted a series of road traffic offences in the city in 2010.
The father-of-eight's criminal record now stands at 472 convictions, including almost 300 driving offences.
At Londonderry Crown Court, Lynch was given a 28-month prison sentence, half of which he will serve in custody.
He also has previous multiple convictions for burglary, assault, forgery and drugs offences.
Judge Piers Grant said Lynch's record was "appalling" and contained the most significant number of convictions ever to come before him.
On Wednesday, the court was told Lynch was seen driving a car that struck two parked cars, two years ago. The owner of one of the cars recognised him. Lynch ran off and was later seen walking across Craigavon Bridge by the police.
As they approached him, he threw a set of keys into the River Foyle.
He was arrested and when breathalysed was found to be more than twice the legal limit. At the time he had been disqualified from driving until 2023.
The court was told Lynch absconded from Northern Ireland to live in Donegal last year where he committed seven further road traffic offences.
Judge Grant imposed a 28-month jail sentence and told Lynch he would serve 14 months in custody and would be on licence for the other 14 months. | A 39-year-old man, whose solicitor claimed has the biggest criminal record in British and Irish judicial history, has been jailed. | 20528692 |
The 24-year-old Dubliner, who swept the boards with three trophies at Wolves' end-of-season awards night on Tuesday, is yet to be capped by his country.
But the former Under-21 was in Martin O'Neill's squad for the friendlies in March against Switzerland and Slovakia.
"It very much depends on the manager's thinking," Jackett told BBC WM.
"But the fact that he has been involved is a credit to him. It shows he is being thought of by Martin O'Neill and long may it continue."
O'Neill must name his squad for France by 31 May.
"It does seem as if maybe injuries would bring him in but he's earned that and I hope it works out for him," added the Wolves head coach.
"Looking back on his season, he can think positively, as he's shown he has the ability to play on either side, which is a strength, particularly for us when you're thinking the emergency loan window isn't available to us and he can be pleased with himself.
"Most importantly looking forward now, at 24 years old, he's got his best years ahead of him and hopefully his best years for Wolves."
Doherty was voted Wolves Player of the Season, Players' Player of the Season and also won the club's Goal of the Season award, for his long-range strike in the 3-2 win against Fulham in January.
Fit-again Wolves team-mate Dave Edwards is also a contender for one of the midfield berths in the Wales squad.
"Matt Doherty was a deserving winner of his three Wolves end-of-season awards. In a campaign that was largely unfulfilling for most concerned with the club, he established himself as a regular and dependable member of the defence.
"Moved from right to left-back for most of the second half of the season, Doherty appeared to have little trouble settling into his new position, adding life to Wolves' attacks. He was unlucky not to score more than the two goals he managed.
"Whether that form will have done enough to put the thoughtful young Irishman into his country's squad for the European Championships remains to be seen but, at 24, he has plenty of time ahead, and if his current progress continues such opportunities are sure to come his way eventually." | Wolves boss Kenny Jackett thinks defender Matt Doherty may still have an outside chance of making Republic of Ireland's Euro 2016 squad. | 36249537 |
Finch captains his country's Twenty20 side, but will be available to play in all competitions for Surrey.
The 29-year-old, who has previously played for Yorkshire, is expected to make his debut in the Championship game against Warwickshire on 2 July.
Sangakkara, 38, could be absent for up to six weeks from the end of June.
"Securing a player of Aaron's quality for such a busy period of red and white ball cricket is excellent news for the club," Surrey director of cricket Alec Stewart said.
"I'm confident we will see his qualities in all formats of the game."
Finch has played 57 one-day internationals and 24 Twenty20 matches for Australia since making his international debut in January 2011. | Surrey have signed Australia batsman Aaron Finch as cover for Kumar Sangakkara while the Sri Lankan plays in the Caribbean Premier League. | 35459674 |
The 22-year-old, on loan from Cardiff City, has scored six goals in 18 appearances for County this season.
He said he was aware of the approach before the 0-0 FA Cup second round draw with Argyle.
"I've heard there's been interest as well but it's not for me to be dealing with that so I've left it for someone else to deal with," he said.
"I'm not surprised because if any striker's scoring goals they're going to get interest.
"But it's not down to the player to be dealing with it - it's down to someone else to deal with it for them because all I want to do is concentrate on scoring goals for Newport each week.
"I don't think it has affected me. Once I step over that line everything goes away outside football. Nothing distracts me."
Newport face Plymouth in a replay on 21 December with a trip to face Liverpool in the third round at Anfield awaiting the winners.
Before then, bottom-of-the-table County face Morecambe at Rodney Parade on Saturday in a key League Two match.
"To get out of the bottom is the main thing," added Healey.
"We need to go into Saturday knowing we are going to beat Morecambe, which we should do and crack on from there.
"We're one of the best sides in the league when we get going, so it's just a matter of getting that first win and getting the momentum going." | Newport County striker Rhys Healey has confirmed FA Cup rivals Plymouth Argyle have made an approach for him. | 38251561 |
It happened outside the White Swan Hotel on the High Street around 21:40.
A 29-year-old man and a teenager were both seriously hurt and taken to hospital for treatment.
Dete Insp Paul Batton said: "I'm keen to hear from anyone who was in the area of the White Swan Hotel on the High Street on Saturday". | Police are looking for witnesses to a fight involving two groups of men in Earlston on Saturday. | 37333593 |
South African cricket great Jacques Kallis has announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket. The following article first appeared in December 2013 when Kallis retired from Test cricket.
It was equally typical that he marked the occasion with the sort of composed and authoritative century that established the all-rounder as one of the finest cricketers of his - or any - generation.
Kallis had a prosaic batting style and natural reserve that meant he was rarely talked of in the same bracket as all-time greats such as Don Bradman, Sir Garry Sobers and Sachin Tendulkar. The numbers tell a different story.
Kallis's hundred against India was his 45th in Test cricket, leaving him second only to India legend Tendulkar, whose own departure from the international game in November was preceded by weeks of feverish anticipation and followed by a national outpouring of grief akin to the death of a statesman.
Kallis's final run in his first innings 115 in Durban sneaked him past Rahul Dravid into third on the all-time list of Test run scorers, with only Tendulkar and former Australia captain Ricky Ponting ahead.
*Statistics correct up to 29 December, 2013
His average of 55.37 is superior to that of Dravid, Tendulkar, Ponting and Brian Lara.
But what really places Kallis on a higher plane is his outstanding contribution with the ball.
A natural bowler of away swing, capable of surprising pace and bounce, he has taken 292 Test wickets at an average of 32.65.
West Indies legend Sobers, the player most frequently awarded the title of the greatest all-rounder in the history of the game, averaged 57.78 with the bat in his 93 Tests, but his 235 wickets cost him a shade over 34.
"I think Jacques Kallis has been kept on the backburner because he has not been much of a showman or talked himself up," says former England captain Michael Vaughan. "I don't know of an all-round cricketer in my time who has been as good as he has.
"Many of the great all-rounders - Sobers, Botham or, more recently, Flintoff - generally bat at five, six or seven.
"But Kallis has batted at three and four throughout his career in all forms of the game. He stands at second slip and bowls 85mph.
"The best cricketer I've seen is Shane Warne - he'd be number one pick in my all-time world XI - but Jacques Kallis would be a close second."
After an underwhelming start to his Test career - he averaged just eight after five matches - Kallis announced himself with a match-saving 101 against an Australia attack featuring Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath on a worn final-day Melbourne pitch in 1997.
Graeme Smith: It's been emotional few days knowing JK retiring. All I can say what a privilege to have played with the great man!
Shaun Pollock: Congrats @jacqueskallis75 '95 seems like just the other day! Thx for the memories & friendship!
AB De Villiers: 140 characters just won't be enough to do justice, so in short then, Jacques Henry Kallis, we salute you.
Paul Collingwood: Statistically @jacqueskallis75 the best cricketer ever
Alec Stewart: One of the greatest all rounders ever @jacqueskallis75 leaving the Test arena in style with his 45th Test 100. #alltimegreat
So impervious was he to the relentless sledging that Australia batsman Greg Blewett asked Kallis whether he was deaf.
In 1999, he showcased his all-round brilliance by scoring a century, a fifty and taking a five-wicket haul in a victory over the West Indies in Cape Town.
Although it took him until 2010 to score his first double-hundred - an unbeaten 201 against India in Centurion - he followed up with 224 against Sri Lanka seven matches later, his highest Test score and one of 14 occasions when he passed 150.
Former England bowler Angus Fraser says Kallis's professionalism and focus were evident during his season at Middlesex in 1997, when they were team-mates.
"Jacques was very disciplined and committed," Fraser recalls. "He had total devotion to being the athlete he needed to be.
"When we were messing around after training, he'd be down the gym to do an extra session.
"He was always a reluctant bowler because I think he was wary of getting injured, but, when he did bowl, he was seriously quick.
"It always amused me when people described him as a medium-pacer because this bloke could bowl as quick as anyone when the mood was right."
The mood was right at Headingley in 2003 when Kallis shouldered an extra bowling burden in the absence of Shaun Pollock, bowling his team to victory on the final day with a career-best 6-54.
While his bowling prospered in English conditions, Kallis occasionally struggled against the moving ball and his average in Tests in England was a relatively modest 35.33.
On home soil, however, he was frequently the player England found most difficult to remove.
In 2004-05, he tamed the England pace attack who would go on to win back the Ashes the following summer - Steve Harmison, Simon Jones, Matthew Hoggard and Andrew Flintoff - with back-to-back hundreds in Durban and Cape Town.
"Everyone has places where they don't do as well, but, in South Africa, we very rarely got him out in either format of the game," Vaughan adds.
"When Duncan Fletcher took over the England team, he talked a lot about Kallis and what a brilliant player he was. I used to watch him over and over on video replays with Duncan, thinking, 'I needed to copy those movements'.
*Statistics correct up to 29 December, 2013
"As a technician, he is right up there with the likes of Dravid and Mahela Jayawardene. He has that calmness under pressure - facing spin or quick bowling - whether his team were in a difficult position or a good position."
Difficult would be an understatement to describe South Africa's predicament in 2006, when Australia racked up 434 runs in a one-day international in Johannesburg.
But according to Pollock, it was Kallis who lightened the mood in the dressing-room and steeled South Africa for their famous record-breaking run chase by claiming that Australia had fallen "10 runs short" of a par score.
It is a revealing anecdote which goes against the popular impression of Kallis as a self-absorbed character who plays more for himself than the team, an image which Fraser also rejects.
"The mindset Kallis gets into underneath his helmet is what has made him successful," Fraser says.
"It is down to a batsman to find an emotional state that allows them to play at their best. Kallis found that place and stayed there - with great success - for the bulk of his career." | It was typical of Jacques Kallis's understated character that he announced his retirement from Test cricket on Christmas Day, guaranteeing minimal fanfare and very little build-up to his final bow. | 28568852 |
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Shaun Johnson kicked the winning drop-goal as the defending champions edged a tense Test match in Huddersfield.
Australian Bennett, taking charge of his first England game on home soil, said: "I'm disappointed in the result but not the effort.
"The difference was a little bit of smarts. Everything else was there."
England lost to a last-gasp try against the Kiwis at Wembley in the semi-final of the 2013 World Cup, and a series of poor decisions and play execution proved costly at a sold-out John Smith's Stadium.
England surrendered an early 4-0 lead, and at one point trailed 12-4, but battled back to level at 16-16 before man of the match Johnson's decisive score.
Asked what England are missing after losing another tight encounter, Bennett said: "It is a learnt thing and we have got to learn how to do it.
"We have a history of not doing it and it is part of the process. You've got to hope that is what I bring.
"It was a quality game of football and we were in it right until the end."
England might have lost, but Bennett has been impressed with the progress shown by his team during the two weeks since he flew in from Australia.
His first game in charge was a comfortable 40-6 win over France in Avignon last weekend, and his team now have a week to prepare for their Four Nations match against Scotland in Coventry next Saturday.
"Things have come a long way," Bennett said. "You've got to remember that we've just had two weeks together."
The match was Sam Burgess's first as England captain, and his first since returning to the game from union.
He said: "You've got to understand the situation we are in. We have improved a hell of a lot in two weeks, and we have still got a couple of weeks before we play Australia."
England end their round-robin series of games with a match against the Kangaroos in London on 13 November - and their defeat by the Kiwis means they are likely to need to win that to reach the final.
Burgess said unforced errors from his team allowed New Zealand to edge a tight Test.
The 27-year-old, who was returning to the ground where he made his international debut in 2007, brought his players in to a huddle at the end of the match.
"We had a chat together on the field and said that the effort was there," he said.
"The character we showed gives us confidence and belief. We are looking at improving on a daily basis and not getting too ahead of ourselves.
"They did well to win the game. It is international rugby league and we gifted a couple of tries - that is one or two too many at this level and made it tough."
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New Zealand hosts started particularly strongly, although their territorial advantage did not yield a first-half try.
Head coach David Kidwell said: "It was an outstanding performance. The most pleasing thing was our defence - that's something we stand for.
"I thought England came out firing and we knew we had to build up our sets and make sure we had a high completion."
Kevin Sinfield, former England captain
The battle's lost but the war's not over. It's still all there for us. We won that second half 12-11.
We had opportunities. We didn't play the Aussie way or the Kiwi way; we played the English way and threw the ball about.
It's a number of years since England have beaten Australia, but we're going to do it at some stage. Why not this year? We have the quality in this team to win.
Robbie Hunter-Paul, former New Zealand international
At the crucial times, New Zealand made the right decisions and showed a bit more experience than England did. | Coach Wayne Bennett said England must learn how to win after a 17-16 defeat against New Zealand in their opening Four Nations match. | 37812467 |
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10 April 2015 Last updated at 14:07 BST
Ahead of the presidential election, BBC Africa looks at what you need to know about what was once the largest and one of the most geographically diverse states in Africa.
Produced by Baya Cat | Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is standing for re-election, despite previous claims that he would quit after 25 years in power. | 32236969 |
It follows the recent attacks in Paris and also in Mali, where 22 people were killed in a raid on a luxury hotel last week, couturier Alphadi said.
About 1,000 designers, models and celebrities were due to attend.
Niger is battling the Nigerian-based jihadist group Boko Haram in the south-east of the country.
Since February, hundreds of people have been killed by the Islamist militants in Diffa region, which borders Nigeria.
The last Fima show in 2013 was held under tight security amid fears of an attack by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Alphadi, whose real name is Seidnaly Sidhamed, said the four-day festival would take place "very soon", without giving a date.
Apart from musicians and designers, footballers Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon and Ivorian Yaya Toure were expected for this year's launch which was due to take place at Niger's biggest stadium, the AFP news agency reports. | One of Africa's foremost fashion shows, the Fima festival in Niger, has been called off by authorities amid security fears, the organiser has announced. | 34915013 |
Farah, 31, who was running his first competitive marathon, finished in eighth place. He also missed out on breaking the British record.
Wilson Kipsang from Kenya won the event in a new course record. Stanley Biwott came second and Tsegaye Kebede third.
Kenya's Edna Kiplagat won the women's elite race with Florence Kiplagat in second and Tirunesh Dibaba third.
Visit BBC Local Live for all the latest on the marathon
World record holder Kipsang crossed the line in a time of two hours, four minutes and 29 seconds.
Farah - the Olympic and world champion at both 5,000m and 10,000m - had been the bookies' most backed runner in the history of the event.
He had also aimed to beat Steve Jones' British record of 2:07:13 seconds which has stood since 1985 - but missed out by finishing in 2:08:21.
After the race he told the BBC: "I will be back. I gave it a go but I'm disappointed I didn't give a bit more than the crowd deserved.
"It was the strongest field ever brought together by the London Marathon. It would have been wrong to do any other marathon. This is my hometown."
Steve Jones said Farah's first competitive marathon was "extremely good" and he was "honoured not to have my record broken".
After the race men's winner Kipsang, said: "I was feeling good and took advantage of controlling the pace and controlling the guys."
The other Britons who finished the men's elite race were Scott Overall, Craig Hopkins and debutants Chris Thompson and Ben Livesey.
In the women's race, British runners Amy Whitehead and Emma Stepto finished in 13th and 14th places with times of two hours, 34 minutes and 20 seconds and two hours 36 minutes and five seconds.
Britain's David "Weirwolf" Weir lost his bid to become the best wheelchair racer in the event's history.
He had been aiming to win his seventh title but was beaten into second place by Switzerland's Marcel Hug.
American Tatyana McFadden took the elite women's wheelchair race title, a month after winning a silver medal at the Winter Olympics for cross-country skiing.
Legions of fun-runners taking part in the event raised thousands of pounds for charity.
Celebrities including former Liverpool and England footballer Michael Owen, Game of Thrones actress Natalie Dormer, and Michelin-star chef Michel Roux Jr were just some of those who took up the challenge.
Nine MPs also tackled the course with Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls running his third consecutive London Marathon.
Sisters Katie, 23, and Polly Ryall, 21, from Newbury, Berkshire, fell short of their quest to become the fastest pair of female siblings to run a marathon.
The pair needed a combined time of five hours, nine minutes and 14 seconds to break the record, but knew before they finished they had not achieved it.
In the 34th year of the event there were also 15 runners who have competed every year.
Race starters Grainger and Watkins, who won the women's double sculls gold at the London 2012 Games, were two of 13 London Olympics gold medallists who took on the famous course from Blackheath to The Mall.
Olympic stars to start marathon | Double Olympic champion Mo Farah missed out on his bid to win the London Marathon 2014. | 27002840 |
6 December 2016 Last updated at 00:51 GMT
Matt Greenwood, from Walsall, West Midlands, has been given nine months to live after the cancer spread from his hip to his lungs.
Included on the Oxford University engineering student's list is a skydive, road trip around America and a hot air balloon ride with his father.
Matt thanked people for their support.
He said: "The support has been unbelievable from all directions, just an outpouring of love and it's really, really been moving." | A 21-year-old bone cancer patient says he's been overwhelmed by the support of friends who've raised more than £56,000 to help him achieve his bucket list. | 38214115 |
The 18-year-old from Denbighshire was found dead in November 1995 with a single bullet wound to the head.
A previous inquest recorded an open verdict, however, a new inquest was ordered in July.
During a pre-inquest review at the High Court a barrister for Surrey Police requested the new inquest was delayed.
The force wants the delay in case applications for fresh inquests into the deaths of three other soldiers at Deepcut - Pte Sean Benton, Pte Geoff Gray and Pte James Collinson - are made.
The hearing has now been delayed for at least four weeks.
Pte James's parents - who believe their daughter suffered sexual harassment and violence - want the new inquest into her death to be held separately and as soon as possible.
Profiles of the Deepcut four | A decision over when a fresh inquest can start over the death of Pte Cheryl James at Deepcut barracks in Surrey has been delayed. | 31662375 |
It is also ending Saturday morning opening at 11 branches.
The bank said it is aiming to make the redundancies "on a strictly voluntary basis".
The banking union, the IBOA, said: "Reducing the number of staff in these crucial roles is not sustainable in the long term."
It added: "It is being driven by a short-term, cost-cutting agenda.
"We are extremely concerned about the impact on customers as well as the increased workload for remaining staff."
Branches ending Saturday morning opening from 14 May are: Armagh, Ballymena, Bangor, Coleraine, Downpatrick, Dungannon, Enniskillen, Magherafelt, Newtownards, Omagh and Portadown.
Seven other Ulster Bank branches will retain Saturday opening hours.
An Ulster Bank spokesman said: "We keep all of our products and services under continual review in response to customer demand.
"This change does not affect branch opening hours during the week.
"Customers will still be able to make use of our online, digital and telephone banking services." | Ulster Bank is shedding around 50 jobs among its branch staff in what it describes as "efforts to build a strong and sustainable" business. | 36055885 |
Environmentalists have objected to the proposals by SP Manweb for cables over 17km linking a substation at Clocaenog Forest and a terminal at Glascoed.
The cables will carry supplies from four windfarms in the Clocaenog and Brenig areas.
A shorter route option was chosen as minimising impact and costs.
Powerlines will run across the Henllan and Nantglyn area, ahead of options which included links to Connah's Quay, Holywell, Corwen, Trawsfynydd and Dolgarrog.
But environmentalists have called for the cables to run underground.
The inspectorate examines large-scale planning projects and it can take months before a decision is made. | Controversial plans for overhead power lines across parts of Conwy and Denbighshire have been lodged with the Planning Inspectorate. | 32626696 |
Townsend, who led Glasgow to the Pro12 title last season, signed a new deal in December, taking him through to the summer of 2017.
"There was some speculation in the media about my future," said Townsend.
"I have a contract here for next year and I'm really looking forward to next season."
Townsend succeeded Sean Lineen in 2012, reaching the Pro12 semi-finals in his first campaign, while Warriors were runners-up the following term.
It was third time lucky last May when the trophy was delivered in style following a 31-13 victory over Munster in the final in Belfast.
Currently third in the table with three matches remaining, Glasgow travel to Scarlets on Saturday aiming to make it eight wins in a row.
"We realise how important this game is, so all our attention has been on that," added Townsend.
"It's in our hands now to get a semi-final place and potentially a home semi-final.
"If we were to win all three [of the remaining league matches] then we'd be playing here in a home semi-final, so that's a huge motivation for the players.
"We know how tough it's going to be with two tough away games against Scarlets and Connacht, teams that have been in the top four all season and Zebre in between, who will be a challenge.
"We know what's at stake but I have huge belief in this group." | Head coach Gregor Townsend insists he will remain at Glasgow Warriors next season, dismissing a link to Harlequins as "a non-story". | 36053840 |
It split along party lines, with all 11 Republicans voting in favour and all 10 Democrats against. A full vote will now be held in the Republican-run Senate.
The move capped a busy day for the new Donald Trump administration.
Most notable was the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fulfilling a campaign pledge.
President Trump signed an executive order to pull out from the 12-nation trade deal that had been a linchpin of former President Barack Obama's Asia policy.
"Great thing for the American worker what we just did," Mr Trump said.
At the start of his first full week in office, the president also:
Also on Monday, the Senate confirmed Mike Pompeo as Mr Trump's CIA director.
Mr Pompeo's immediate task, correspondents say, will be to establish an effective relationship between the spy agency and Mr Trump.
The president has been critical of the CIA for concluding that Russia had been actively working to influence the US presidential election in his favour.
In another development, new US Defence Secretary James Mattis said Washington had an "unshakeable commitment" to Nato, despite Mr Trump's earlier description of the military alliance as "obsolete".
Rex Tillerson, Trump's wildcard diplomat
What executive actions has Trump taken?
What will happen in his first 100 days?
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Mr Tillerson after leading Republican Senator Marco Rubio dropped his opposition.
Mr Rubio sparred with Mr Tillerson, a 64-year-old Texan oil executive, during confirmation hearings earlier this month, accusing him of being soft on Russia.
The former head of Exxon Mobil, Mr Tillerson knows Russian President Vladimir Putin through his business dealings.
But Mr Tillerson has criticised Moscow for its annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Mr Rubio said that although he had doubts over the choice, he believed a new president was entitled to deference in assembling his cabinet.
"Despite my reservations, I will support Mr Tillerson's nomination in committee and in the full Senate," said Mr Rubio.
He had challenged Mr Tillerson over his refusal to call President Putin a "war criminal" over Russia's air strikes in Syria and his failure to condemn strongly enough human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.
Mr Rubio was among the candidates who fought Mr Trump in the battle for the Republican presidential ticket.
The partisan split in the voting is unusual. Traditionally, nominees for secretary of state have been approved by overwhelming votes from both parties.
Senator Ben Cardin, the committee's top Democrat, had said he would not vote for Mr Tillerson, also over his position on Russia as well as other issues.
He also suggested that Mr Tillerson's "business orientation" could "compromise his ability as secretary of state to forcefully promote the values and ideals that have defined" America.
While critics raise concern about his ability to trade in his corporate interest for a national one, some supporters suggest the former CEO's background as a global dealmaker may bring fresh perspective to the nation's top diplomatic post.
At a closed doors meeting on Monday night, Mr Trump told congressional leaders he would have won the popular vote in the election if millions of undocumented immigrants had not voted illegally. He gave no evidence for the claim.
Democrat Hillary Clinton won nearly three million votes more than her opponent, who got more support in key swing states and won the electoral college.
But any notion of widespread voter fraud was widely rejected as untrue when Mr Trump made the same claim in November. | The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has narrowly approved Rex Tillerson as US secretary of state, despite concerns about his business ties to Russia. | 38723195 |
Speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting in New York, Ms Fernandez called on Britain to negotiate the archipelago's future.
"We don't take a fanciful approach to the Malvinas," she said, using the Argentine name for the islands.
"We simply want the UN resolution to be enforced."
She was referring to UN Resolution 2065, which urged both parties in 1965 to negotiate.
She said Argentina and Britain should "sit down and discuss" the matter.
Argentina became a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in January, for a two-year period.
Five of its 15 members (United States, Russia, China, France and Britain) are permanent and have the power of veto.
Argentina has taken over the body's presidency this month, and Ms Fernandez was invited to chair the meeting at the UN headquarters in New York.
She insisted that the islands belong rightfully to Argentina, but called on restraint from both sides.
"This is a litigious and controversial issue. We need to find consensus and safeguard peace."
Britain and Argentina went to war over the islands in 1982.
Margaret Thatcher's government responded to an invasion of the islands on 2 April 1982 by sending a British task force to the South Atlantic.
Some 255 British and 650 Argentine troops died in the conflict, which ended just over two months later, on 14 June, with Argentine surrender.
The islanders voted overwhelmingly on a referendum held in March to remain British. | Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has restated her country's demand for sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. | 23596312 |
Nominations for candidates open on 31 March and it is believed Labour should have put its application in by 7 March.
In December, NI Labour activists passed a motion suggesting they should organise in order to contest elections.
But with no place on the register, even individual Labour members standing can only be identified as independents.
The major obstacle facing activists in Northern Ireland is that the party's headquarters in London has not given permission for local Labour candidates to stand in Northern Ireland elections.
Labour's national executive committee is currently reviewing the matter.
Should the Labour Party ever decide to register in Northern Ireland, one additional complication may be that the name Labour Party of Northern Ireland has been registered since 2005.
The name belongs to a former SDLP councillor, Malachi Curran, who was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum as a Labour candidate in 1996.
NI followers of Jeremy Corbyn's party organise under the similar but slightly different name of Labour Party in Northern Ireland. | Labour Party activists keen on contesting the NI Assembly election in May have missed the deadline for the register of political parties. | 35822801 |
The series is 1-1 after two matches, with Friday's game in Kingston the first of three that count towards the Women's Championship.
England sit fourth in the Championship, with the top four teams qualifying for the 2017 World Cup in the UK.
"Winning 3-0 is realistic, but it will be hard," Knight, 25, said.
"They are a very good team, with world-class players and in their own conditions, they are probably favourites," she added. "The first two games have shown we are evenly matched."
If England fail to qualify in the remaining matches in Jamaica, they will have another chance in Sri Lanka in November.
After winning the first ODI in Montego Bay by five runs, they were on course to win the second at 93-3 chasing 149 for victory.
But Knight's dismissal was the first of seven wickets for 17 runs, including four wickets in 10 balls for West Indies' pace bowler Deandra Dottin, to give the hosts victory by 38 runs.
"We gave them a sniff and they broke the door down," Knight told BBC Sport. "Seventeen runs for seven wickets wasn't ideal and we have to find a way to combat that.
"Myself and Nat Sciver were disappointed that we got in, then got out. If we're ever in that situation again we have to adapt and find a way to stop the rot."
Pace bowler Anya Shrubsole, England's vice-captain, was ruled out of the first two ODIs because of a side strain, but bowled during the interval of the second match and looks likely to be fit for Friday's match at Sabina Park.
Her return would give an England a decision to make on the balance of an attack that included three specialist spinners in Montego Bay.
"Hopefully Anya will be ready to go soon," Knight said. "She's a key player for us and we've missed her in the first two games.
"She's one of the best bowlers in the world, so you find a way to get her into the team. Someone might be hard done by to be left out." | Captain Heather Knight says England can realistically win the final three one-day internationals against West Indies to secure World Cup qualification. | 37651091 |
It said those infected with HIV, or who developed advanced Hepatitis C, should get £27,000 per year - the equivalent of the average Scottish salary.
They are currently offered £15,000.
The Scottish government said it had yet to decide whether to implement the new proposals.
Campaigners have been split over the level of payouts, with some saying more money should be found.
The move follows the publication of the findings of the Penrose Inquiry into the contamination of blood supplies in the 1970s and 80s.
Financial support is targeted at people who were infected by their NHS treatment, including haemophiliacs and people who have had blood transfusions.
Many went on to suffer conditions such as liver disease.
The Department of Health recently estimated the number of victims was 30,000 UK-wide.
Under the Scottish proposals, those who have both infections would receive £37,000 per year, an extra £7,000 on present arrangements.
For the first time, widows or widowers would also be supported by an annual pension.
But victims' groups said many people would still miss out on compensation completely.
Philip Dolan, of the Scottish Infected Blood Forum, said: "Disappointment is an understatement.
"It's like thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas to betray Jesus.
"These proposals mean that people are only getting what Lord Ross recommended in 2003. They are only getting what they were due 13 years ago."
Hepatitis C is a virus which damages the liver.
In the early stages most people are unaware they have the infection, and between 15-25% of people will clear the virus from their system naturally.
For the remaining 75-85%, their health will gradually deteriorate. They may suffer jaundice, drowsiness, and pain.
Drug treatments are effective in just over half of all cases, although new drugs are offering more effective cure rates.
Twenty years after infection, approximately 15% to 20% of the remaining patients will develop cirrhosis or advanced liver disease, which is fatal without a liver transplant.
Those infected with HIV as well as Hepatitis C develop cirrhosis sooner and have a higher risk of death.
He added: "Eighty per cent of people with Hepatitis C are still ill but are not in the advanced stages of the disease therefore they and their spouses will get nothing. Many of them are people who had blood transfusions.
"I'm glad some people are getting this money but do think it's a failure of government to give recognition to the majority of people who got Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion."
Lawyer Patrick McGuire, who represents most of the Scottish victims, welcomed the report.
But he said the grading system which differentiates between victims and the symptoms they have needs to be looked at.
Mr McGuire said: "Until this issue is sorted out, some people with terrible health problems will lose out due to this unfair grading system.
"Another obstacle is that, while this new scheme will give a better standard of living to victims in their daily lives, no progress has been made to compensate people for the monstrous injustice they have suffered in the first place.
"Let us not forget that thousands of Scots, through no fault of their own, have been infected with very serious conditions.
"Many have died, many continue to live lives blighted by pain and uncertainty. It is only right that these people receive settlement for what has been done to them."
A Scottish government spokesman said an announcement would be made on the new recommendations before World Haemophilia Day next April. | People infected by contaminated NHS blood products should have their compensation nearly doubled, a report to the Scottish government has recommended. | 35110849 |
The upturned hull of the Cemfjord - which was carrying cement - was spotted by a passing ferry on Saturday and later sank.
No trace of the crew was found despite an extensive search operation.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said a fixed wing aircraft was conducting a search.
The Cemfjord crew consisted of seven Polish nationals and one Filipino. | An aircraft has been searching for debris from a cargo ship which sank in the Pentland Firth with eight men on board. | 30712015 |
The Nottingham fighter started faster but his Danish rival, who beat Froch in Denmark in 2010, found his feet in the middle rounds.
But Froch, 35, kept his head and marginally had the better of some barbaric rounds down the stretch.
Froch took a unanimous decision, winning 118-10, 116-12 and 115-113 on the three judges' scorecards.
"It was an absolutely sensational fight, we will never see that again. I thought the referee was about to step in at one point but Froch dug deep.
"Both had to dig deep, you never thought Kessler was going to come back after those first three rounds but he did and then Carl had to recover after Kessler had a good spell.
"Froch was second to none. In the first round you thought Carl was on top and then Kessler found something forcing Carl to dig deep.
"But whenever questions were asked of Carl he found the answers."
"It feels really good," Froch said. "The only thing that feels bad is that I have had to beat such a real gentleman, a real warrior and real nice man.
"He did hurt me a couple of times; I think everybody saw that," he told Sky Sports. "But I hurt him a little bit more and I thought I deserved the win. I thought it was unanimously my fight.
"I was close to getting the stoppage towards the end but, when I went in for the finish, what did he do? He fought back with a couple of big, hard shots. Big respect to him."
His victory could pave the way for a rematch with American Andre Ward, who outclassed and outpointed the Englishman in Atlantic City in 2011.
Ward, the WBA title-holder, was ringside at the O2 but Froch and Kessler, 34, could go again, given the barbaric and dramatic nature of their two fights so far and the fact they are so evenly matched.
While Kessler had only boxed 13 rounds since outpointing Froch in their first fight, Froch had fought five times, including last year's thrilling demolition of Canada's Lucian Bute.
And Kessler started slower, although Froch probably stole the opening round with a couple of flurries late on.
If some of the verbal exchanges in the build-up were trashy and the atmosphere before the first bell was electric, the first two rounds were relatively cagey.
Froch continued to control the centre of the ring in the second, keeping Kessler at bay with his jab and landing with a snappy left-right combination that caught his rival off-balance.
Kessler had some success with his jab in the third but Froch also landed with a crisp left hook and it looked like another round for the Englishman.
The Dane came into the fight in the fourth, demonstrating the speed he is renowned for and repeatedly beating Froch to the punch with his jab.
And the fight came alive in the fifth, with Kessler landing with two looping left hooks and bringing Froch to a standstill with a flurry of blows on the bell.
Kessler rocked Froch with a thunderous left-right combination at the start of the sixth and as the round progressed it appeared the Dane had gained control of the contest.
Froch got the better of some furious exchanges in the seventh as the 20,000 capacity crowd warmed to the action but they had not seen anything yet.
Kessler landed with a booming overhand right early in the eighth only for Froch to retaliate with a couple of rights of his own and stiffen his opponent with a sickening left-right combination.
By the ninth the fight had settled into a grim rhythm, with the pendulum swinging back and forth, but Kessler did the smarter work, making Froch grimace with a couple of stabbing blows to the body.
Froch probably nicked a ragged 10th courtesy of his superior work-rate but the Dane took the 11th, hurting his rival with some slick and heavy-handed combinations and paving the way for a grandstand finish.
The final round was a classic, with Froch mercilessly stalking his prey and Kessler hanging on for dear life when the final bell sounded.
If not Ward or Kessler, Froch, who improved to 31 wins and two defeats in 33 professional fights, might be tempted into a bout against American legend Bernard Hopkins, who defends his IBF light-heavyweight title against Karo Murat in July.
Wales's WBO light-heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly has also expressed an interest in fighting Froch, as has Froch's fellow Englishman George Groves, who beat Uruguay's Noe Gonzalez in spectacular fashion on the undercard.
Kessler, whose only other losses in a 49-fight career, were against Welsh great Joe Calzaghe in 2007 and Ward in 2009, said he might retire if he lost to Froch but he might now be persuaded to change his mind. | Carl Froch retained his IBF super-middleweight crown and gained sweet revenge on Mikkel Kessler with a thrilling win on points at London's O2 Arena. | 22667716 |
8 July 2016 Last updated at 22:24 BST
These are some excerpts of the recorded conversation when Marcus promises the victim, Hannah Casey, that the money will be returned.
She never received the money, and Marcus, 52, of Ashfield Avenue in Bushey, was subsequently jailed for four and a half years after admitting fraud. | A victim of rogue lettings agent Martin Marcus confronted him after he failed to return her deposit. | 36739372 |
The events are being held in Cheltenham and Gloucester later to hear people's experiences of care in the last year.
England's chief inspector of hospitals said views expressed would help inspectors decide what to look at.
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust will be inspected on 10 March and given an overall rating under changes by the Care Quality Commission.
The chief inspector, Prof Sir Mike Richards, announced last year he would lead significantly larger inspection teams than before, headed up by clinical and other experts including trained members of the public.
He said: "The new inspections are designed to provide people with a clear picture of the quality of the services in their local hospital, exposing poor or mediocre care as well as highlighting the many hospitals providing good and excellent care.
"Of course we will be talking to doctors and nurses, hospital managers and patients at the trust. But it is vital that we also hear the views of the people who have received care at the trust, or anyone who wants to share information with us.
"This will help us plan our inspection, and so help us focus on the things that really matter to people who depend on this service."
The inspectors are holding "listening" events for the public to share their experiences at Hotel Mercure Cheltenham Queens at 15:30 and New County Hotel, in Gloucester, at 18:00. | People are being invited to give their views on Gloucestershire hospitals at two events, ahead of an inspection. | 31606035 |
The case centres on the most deadly blaze on Black Saturday, on 7 February 2009, when wildfires swept across several areas in the state of Victoria.
This fire, in the Kilmore East area north of Melbourne, killed 119 people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes.
The plaintiffs say SPI Electricity failed to adequately maintain its power lines - claims the company denies.
The case is expected to last at least nine months. There are about 10,000 plaintiffs, led by Carol Matthews, who lost her 22-year-old son in the fire.
A 2009 Royal Commission found that the fire began when an electricity line failed between two poles. Contact between the live conductor and a cable stay supporting the pole caused arcing that ignited vegetation, the report said.
The plaintiffs accuse SPI of failing to maintain its equipment adequately.
"This fire was entirely preventable," their lawyer, Robert Richter, told the court. "With known and reasonable steps taken in time, SPI could and should have prevented it."
He rejected SPI's stance that a lightning strike damaged the power line's infrastructure.
The group are also suing maintenance firm Utility Services Corporation Limited over its inspections of the power line.
A total of 173 people died in the Black Saturday fires. | Survivors of one of the biggest bushfires in Australian history are suing a power company for negligence. | 21651592 |
The former British number one, 23, is working with the German on a trial basis before her next tournament in Yokohama in two weeks' time.
Kindlmann spent three years with Sharapova before her positive test for meldonium at the 2016 Australian Open.
He has since coached world number 22 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Kindlmann, 34, is now a free agent and well known to IMG, who manage both Sharapova and Robson.
Robson had been working with former players Lucie Ahl and Colin Beecher - employed by Junior Tennis Coaching - since June 2016. The decision to end the partnership appears to have been a mutual one.
Robson won the girls' title at Wimbledon at the age of 14, and reached the fourth round of both Wimbledon and the US Open before she turned 20.
She has been as high as 27 in the world rankings but currently sits at 209, having effectively lost two years to a wrist injury which required surgery.
Robson won her first tournament for eight years in Pennsylvania last August and then qualified for the main draw of the US Open.
However, she lost seven matches in a row between September and January and a sustained run of success will be required before she is able to compete regularly on the WTA Tour again. | Laura Robson has turned to Maria Sharapova's former hitting partner Didi Kindlmann as she looks for a coach to guide the next stage of her career. | 39034952 |
Each side finished with 10 men as Bury striker James Vaughan and Shrewsbury centre-half Adam El-Abd were sent off either side of the break with the score still goalless.
Mayor then broke the deadlock with a 65th minute strike and although Ivan Toney levelled with a quarter of an hour remaining, Mayor struck again at the start of stoppage time to make it back-to-back home wins for the Shakers.
Bury had the better of the opening stages, with Zeli Ismail jinking down the right before cutting back for Mayor, who sidefooted just wide.
Ismail then played a one-two with Jacob Mellis and cut back for Vaughan, whose goalbound effort was blocked by Jack Grimmer.
Vaughan and El-Abd then clashed on 39 minutes, with both players being booked, and just two minutes later Vaughan caught El-Abd late, resulting in a second yellow card.
El-Abd followed him off on 52 minutes after bundling over Mayor for a second yellow, and shortly after the latter cut in from the left before firing into the top corner.
Shrewsbury replied as Joe Riley crossed for Toney to beat goalkeeper Ben Williams in the air and head home, but Mayor pounced from close range to seal victory at the death.
Reports supplied by the Press Association.
Match ends, Bury 2, Shrewsbury Town 1.
Second Half ends, Bury 2, Shrewsbury Town 1.
Hallam Hope (Bury) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Ryan McGivern (Shrewsbury Town).
Attempt missed. Kean Bryan (Bury) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left.
Substitution, Bury. Kean Bryan replaces Jacob Mellis.
Hallam Hope (Bury) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Ryan McGivern (Shrewsbury Town).
Attempt saved. Andy Mangan (Shrewsbury Town) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Substitution, Shrewsbury Town. Andy Mangan replaces Mat Sadler.
Goal! Bury 2, Shrewsbury Town 1. Danny Mayor (Bury) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the high centre of the goal. Assisted by Tom Pope.
Corner, Bury. Conceded by Shaun Whalley.
Attempt blocked. Danny Mayor (Bury) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Foul by Tom Pope (Bury).
Jack Grimmer (Shrewsbury Town) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt missed. Ivan Toney (Shrewsbury Town) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top right corner.
Attempt missed. Hallam Hope (Bury) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the right.
Attempt missed. Jacob Mellis (Bury) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left.
Attempt saved. Hallam Hope (Bury) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.
Corner, Shrewsbury Town. Conceded by Leon Barnett.
Substitution, Bury. Hallam Hope replaces Zeli Ismail.
Goal! Bury 1, Shrewsbury Town 1. Ivan Toney (Shrewsbury Town) header from the left side of the six yard box to the top left corner. Assisted by Joe Riley.
Attempt missed. Abu Ogogo (Shrewsbury Town) left footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the right.
Corner, Shrewsbury Town. Conceded by Craig Jones.
Attempt blocked. Shaun Whalley (Shrewsbury Town) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Corner, Bury. Conceded by Moha.
Goal! Bury 1, Shrewsbury Town 0. Danny Mayor (Bury) right footed shot from outside the box to the top right corner.
Substitution, Shrewsbury Town. Moha replaces Louis Dodds.
Foul by Danny Mayor (Bury).
Ryan McGivern (Shrewsbury Town) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt blocked. Leon Barnett (Bury) right footed shot from very close range is blocked.
Attempt saved. Danny Mayor (Bury) right footed shot from very close range is saved in the centre of the goal.
Corner, Bury. Conceded by Ryan McGivern.
Tom Pope (Bury) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Jack Grimmer (Shrewsbury Town).
Attempt saved. Joe Riley (Shrewsbury Town) right footed shot from long range on the right is saved in the centre of the goal.
Substitution, Shrewsbury Town. Shaun Whalley replaces Sylvan Ebanks-Blake.
Corner, Bury. Conceded by Ryan McGivern.
Attempt blocked. Tom Pope (Bury) right footed shot from a difficult angle on the right is blocked.
Substitution, Bury. Craig Jones replaces Niall Maher. | Danny Mayor's second-half brace handed Bury a last-gasp victory at home to Shrewsbury. | 37264408 |
A report looking at the 226 English clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in October 2014 says the average journey for a patient was 13 miles (22km).
But six teams saw patients travelling on average more than 100km (62 miles).
Patients in Brighton and Great Yarmouth and Waveney faced the longest average distance, NHS statistics show.
Vicki Nash, head of policy and campaigns at mental health charity Mind, said: "When someone is in a mental health crisis, they are at their most vulnerable.
2A good support network of friends and family can play a key part in recovery, but if someone is sent far from home... friends and family may be less likely to be able to visit.
"We know that bed numbers have been dropping over the last few years, making it harder for people to get the help they need, when and where they need it. It's not acceptable."
The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) report said the majority of people had a distance of less than 10km (6 miles), but one in 10 people (1,665) had a distance of 50km (31 miles) or more and one in 20 (778) people have to travel 100km (62 miles) or more.
The report says: "The data shows that people living in the South and East of England, particularly in CCGs covering large geographic areas, such as NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG (median of 94.4km to treatment for 15 people treated) are more likely to travel further to treatment on average."
A spokesman for HealthEast, the CCG for Great Yarmouth and Waveney, said: "Beds for mental health patients are arranged by Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, who will look for the closest available appropriate bed to the patient's home.
"It is important to note that patients living in Great Yarmouth and Waveney are only placed out of the area very occasionally and when appropriate.
"We will continue to work with the mental health trust to ensure people are treated as close to home as possible."
A spokesman for Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG said: "Geographically, the Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG covers a large area, and in its report, the HSCIC recognises this as a major factor affecting distances travelled by the 15 east Suffolk mental health patients.
"The priority of the CCG is to always place patients in the most appropriate care setting as close to home as possible, and this happens in the majority of cases."
A spokeswoman for Bristol CCG said it was "working in partnership with Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust to prevent anyone being transported out of area for their care and treatment". | Mental health patients having to travel as far as 79 miles (127km) for a bed is "not acceptable", the charity Mind has said. | 31448670 |
About 70% of lights have been turned off between midnight and 05:00 since March 2013 to save £1m annually.
Safety and crime concerns led some local councils to offer to fund the night lighting themselves.
Essex County Council said the lights would now be turned off between 01:00 and 05:00 six days a week, costing an extra £300,000 a year.
Rodney Bass, Conservative cabinet member for highways and transportation, said the decision to roll out the new scheme followed a successful trial in Epping Forest.
He said it was "not a change of policy", but a "fine-tuning" of the system, particularly to help those living closer to London who arrived back on trains late from the capital.
The lights will remain off between 00:00 and 05:00 on Mondays due to fewer commuter journeys, except near the Epping Forest underground.
The changes come into effect on 30 March.
Harlow Council voted last month to raise council tax by 1.5% to pay for the cost of having the street lights turned back on all night.
It followed complaints of theft, robbery and injury as people walked in the darkness.
But the county council rejected the £121,000 offer, saying it was "bizarre" as it had seen no evidence of a rise in crime or injury.
Colchester Borough Council said it had allocated up to £185,000 in its budget to pay for the lights to be turned back on. Tendring District Council is due to debate the issue later.
Jon Clempner, leader at Harlow Council, said: "I am pleased that the Essex County Council's position of inflexibility has changed to illustrate that it can respond to local needs." | Street lights will be turned on for an extra hour across Essex following a decision by the county council. | 32030913 |
For a supermarket like Tesco, that figure is chilling for two reasons.
Firstly, Christmas was traditionally the time when promiscuous shoppers returned to the Big Four to fill their groaning family trolleys. That is no longer the case - Lidl sells champers too.
And, secondly, if half of shoppers tried Aldi and Lidl, that meant that half didn't. Which shows the enormous room for expansion the discounters have.
Both are planning substantial store openings over the next two years, giving the lie to anyone who thinks that the discounter cycle is coming to an end anytime soon.
Aldi has also said it will start an online offer next year, which is likely to send a few more cold winds through Tesco's aisles.
One remarkable fact from Tesco's results today is that it is seen as good news that the UK business (which accounts for three-quarters of the supermarket's revenues) has actually turned a small profit.
For a large part of last year, Dave Lewis, the chief executive, was running the British business at a loss as he desperately tried to encourage customers back through the door.
Frankly, even I could have a good go at selling courgettes at less than I bought them for.
Investors will be heaving a sigh of relief that such an unsustainable position was at least only temporary.
But it's not as if with one bound Mr Lewis is free. For the first half of this year, profits in the UK were down 70% on the same period last year, and the vital operating profit margin is languishing below 1%.
That's for a business that used to enjoy a margin of more than 5%.
Mr Lewis is caught in something of a trap. He must offer customers lower prices if he is to arrest declining sales.
But he also has to provide investors with profits, or the Tesco share price - which has halved in the last two years - is only going to go in one direction.
I asked Mr Lewis if he was worried that Tesco was operating within such tight margins.
"I'm not sure I see it exactly the same way, Kamal," he told me.
"I understand why you say that because you compare this year with the first half of last year, and that's completely understandable.
"But having come into the business, we obviously had some issues to deal with.
"We dealt with them. It meant that in the second half of last year we made no profit whatsoever in the UK.
"So if I compare to the second half of last year, the first half of this year feels like we've made some progress.
"Our sales are growing compared to where they were either a year ago or indeed in the second half of last year, and we've generated some profit as we rebuild the Tesco business.
"Importantly, at the same time we're improving what it is we're doing for our customers."
Mr Lewis told me that he wanted to cut prices further. For that, Tesco will use cost savings within the business and some of the income from the £4bn sale of Tesco's business in South Korea, which has reduced Tesco's debt costs.
But some expenses will be going up. The government's announcement that a "national living wage" of at least £9 an hour will be paid by businesses by 2020 will have a substantial impact on retailers.
Last week I interviewed Sir Ian Cheshire, the former head of B&Q owner Kingfisher, who called for a review of the increase in two years to ensure that the costs for businesses were not too onerous
Although not agreeing with Sir Ian's call, Mr Lewis did tell me he wanted the hourly rate demands of the living wage analysed.
"We supported the fact that the living wage in April was set at a minimum of £7.20," he said.
"We supported that because we actually paid Tesco colleagues [that] already.
"I think the thing that we would like rather than any review is actually a broader discussion about total reward within the retail sector.
"My colleagues receive a base pay, but they also receive a series of benefits, which they really appreciate.
"When you look at those benefits and you monetise those benefits, it gets you very close to the £9 which is what is aspired for in 2020.
"So, the conversation I'm having with my colleagues is around how it is they want to receive their reward from Tesco.
"But a simple reduction of everything into a base rate is not what they want, and I'd like a more intelligent conversation about total reward rather than just talking about base pay per hour."
Mr Lewis knows he is caught between two sometimes conflicting impulses - lower prices for customers and increased profits for investors.
He believes he can produce both, via a better-run business focused on the UK.
Investors remain to be convinced despite a small rise in the share price. The message? Mr Lewis - more work needed. | Last Christmas, more than half of Britain's shoppers tried the discount experience of Aldi or Lidl. | 34462482 |
Staff told police that beef items on their menu were buffalo, not cow, meat.
Police said they only went to Kerala House as a "preventive measure", not to investigate the complaint or take meat samples.
An angry Kerala government has complained to the police.
Kerala is one of the few Indian states in which cow slaughter is legal.
Most states, including Delhi, most states, including Delhi, ban the slaughter of cows, because the cow is considered sacred by India's majority Hindus.
Indian media report that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing the police of overstepping their authority.
"I would like to inform you that the Kerala House staff canteen serves authentic vegetarian and non-vegetarian Kerala cuisine and the items in the menu are entirely within law," the letter is reported to have said.
The confusion likely stemmed from the fact that in India, buffalo meat is often called "beef", the BBC's South Asia Editor Charles Haviland reports.
After the police action, the institution removed the buffalo meat from its kitchens - but has since, defiantly, restored it, our correspondent says.
Following Monday evening's incident, the police picked up the caller from the Hindu Sena group for further questioning.
"We dealt with the matter with necessary alertness and took our position. The objective was to ensure that law and order is not disrupted," Jatin Narwal, a senior police officer, told the NDTV news site.
However, Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy condemned the police for visiting Kerala House at all.
"The Delhi police should have shown restraint and consulted officials concerned before checking the premises for beef dishes," Mr Chandy told Indian television channels.
The incident has led to outrage on both social and mainstream media.
"Kerala's famed beef curry has been an annoying bone that got stuck in the throat of the Sangh parivar [Hindu hardline group], especially because many Hindus in the state relish the dish," an editorial in the Telegraph newspaper said.
Arun Shourie, who was a minister in the former BJP government, also criticised the government, saying its policies were identical to those of the previous Congress government - except for its preoccupation with cows.
"People have started recalling the days of [former prime minister] Manmohan Singh. The way to characterise the policies of the government is - Congress plus a cow. The policies are the same," he said at a function in Delhi.
"Kerala House" was one of the top trends on Twitter India, with many criticising the government as well as what they saw as overzealous police action.
The issue of beef consumption has become highly political since a 50-year-old Muslim man was lynched in north India over allegations that he had consumed beef.
Government ministers from the Hindu nationalist BJP said the incident was a "spontaneous expression of anger", while the chief minister of the northern state of Haryana said the cow "is an article of faith" in India.
The beef ban has provoked outrage, with many questioning the government's right to decide what is on their plate.
It has also been criticised by many as beef is cheaper than chicken and fish and is a staple for the poorer Muslim, tribal and Dalit (formerly untouchable) communities. | The canteen of a Delhi guesthouse belonging to the southern Indian state of Kerala was visited by police after a rightwing Hindu group complained it had beef on its menu. | 34645240 |
The £6bn project will link the M25, near North Ockendon, Essex, with the A2 near Shorne, Kent, passing through greenbelt land.
The transport secretary said it would create more than 6,000 jobs and boost the economy by more than £8bn.
Adam Holloway, Gravesham's Conservative MP, said it was a "crazy idea" and "a disaster for the people of Dartford".
Under the plans, the new road will cross the A13 at Orsett and connect land east of Tilbury to land east of Gravesend.
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A new road will then take traffic to the A2, near Thong, via the Western Southern Link.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said the new Lower Thames Crossing would also "reduce the burden on the busy Dartford Crossing".
A public consultation about the crossing started in January last year, with Highways England recommending option "C" as the favoured route.
However, opponents raised objections to the fact it would cut through greenbelt land, and its proximity to homes and schools.
Chair of Shorne Parish Council Robin Theobald told the BBC earlier that it was "not a day for celebrations".
Anti-option C campaign group, A Bridge Too Far, argued it would have a "detrimental affect" on the local area and Bob Lane, from the Lower Thames Crossing Association said: "Highways England have hoodwinked the government with their biased consultation. There wasn't a single mention of Option A."
There were originally three main ideas for a new crossing location:
Bryan Sweetland, representing Gravesham on Kent County Council added it would take 10 years to build, by which time the old tunnels at Dartford would also need replacing.
Gravesham MP Mr Holloway, who also objected to the route, said: "It's a crazy idea. They [the Department for Transport] have no numbers on what portion of this traffic is national, and what is regional.
"It's also a disaster for the people of Dartford. We've had this once in a generation opportunity to fix the problem at Dartford, and it's been flopped."
However, according to the Department for Transport (DfT), the chosen option was picked by nearly 47,000 people who took part in a consultation.
A spokesman for the DfT said the C route had been "optimised" after the consultation, and moved slightly east to avoid people's homes.
The Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, which is building thousands of houses across north Kent, Eurotunnel, the Port of Dover, Kent Invicta Chamber and Dartford council leader Jeremy Kite (Con) all voiced their support for the decision.
Christian Brodie, of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership said: "This will strengthen the resilience of our UK and European connections - imperative as we now move towards Brexit."
Mr Grayling also promised £10m to help tackle traffic jams around the existing crossing.
Dartford's Conservative MP Gareth Johnson welcomed the decision, saying it was right "for Dartford but also for the whole country".
He added: "It would have been wrong to locate another crossing at Dartford and funnel more traffic in to the area and on to roads that can't cope as it is.
"I understand this decision may not be welcomed by residents in Gravesend but we will do what we can to ensure the impact on the environment is limited."
The Lower Thames Crossing is expected to carry 4.5 million lorries in its first year. | The route of a new road tunnel under the Thames Estuary has been revealed. | 39575467 |
Chief executive Juergen Maier said that while the German giant is committed to the UK, he is worried about the prospects for future investment.
"We are concerned about what the future might hold in terms of new investments that we might want to make" he said.
Siemens has 13 plants in the UK and employs about 14,000 people.
It manufactures and exports high value goods including MRI scanners and gas turbines.
His comments follow news that plans by Siemens to export wind turbine blades from a new facility in Hull have been put on hold.
The company's links with the UK go back 170 years. And Mr Maier, who campaigned for a Remain vote, insists that Britain is still a good place to do business.
"We are not going to run away from the British market. We are committed here. It's a great market," he told the BBC.
But he warned that the uncertainty which has followed the vote to leave the EU would soon have consequences.
He said: "Short term, in terms of any investment decisions you want to make here, especially those that result in exporting to the European Union, they will be on ice. No question about that."
EU credit rating cut after Brexit vote
Barclays 'has no plans to move jobs'
Job hopes blown on the wind
Investment decisions, he said, are a balance between factors including strong innovation and skills and how easy it is to trade.
"Unless you have a really strong argument for innovation or skills being particularly strong here, if those are similar to somewhere else the business case for investing here will now be less attractive until we know what the trading arrangement is going to be," he said.
The company is currently building a £310m manufacturing hub for wind turbine blades in Hull that will employ about 1,000 people.
Mr Maier insists that investment is safe and will continue. But plans to export from the facility in the future are now on hold.
"That's the opportunity that at the moment is not as clear," he said.
Mr Maier said that the UK government needs to get to work fast on a plan for how we will trade with Europe.
"We've got to make sure we end up in a situation where our relationship is strong and friendly with the European Union whilst accepting the democratic vote that we wont be..in the EU directly itself."
You can follow John at @JohnMoylanBBC | One of the UK's biggest industrial companies, Siemens UK, has warned that investment could be hit in the wake of the Brexit vote. | 36680572 |
It said Mr Vucic had visited the town "in a spirit of reconciliation, intending to pay respect".
Mr Vucic was forced to flee the ceremony after being booed and heckled and then pelted with stones.
About 8,000 Muslims were killed in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian war.
Speaking in Belgrade after the attack, Mr Vucic said his glasses had been smashed in the incident but he was otherwise unhurt.
He said the attackers had been organised, but stressed he would continue his policy of rapprochement.
"I am sorry that some people didn't understand my sincere desire to build friendship between Serbs and Bosniaks," he said.
"My hand remains outstretched to the Bosniak people."
Mr Vucic is a former radical Serb nationalist who served under Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the late 1990s.
He is now a pro-Western politician seeking to steer Serbia into the European Union. His government managed to secure support from its ally Russia on Wednesday to veto a UN resolution calling the events in Srebrenica a genocide.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered for the commemoration on Saturday in the eastern Bosnian town.
Witnesses said Mr Vucic had just laid a flower at a monument when parts of the crowd began chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God Is Great) and throwing stones.
Shielded by umbrellas, Mr Vucic and his bodyguards fled the ceremony.
In its statement, Bosnia's presidency - with members from each of the country's three main communities, Bosniak, Croat and Serb - apologised to "all foreign delegations" for the incident.
The Mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, said the attack was "the work of sick minds who abused this solemn event".
Serbia, meanwhile, condemned the attack as an "assassination attempt".
Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said it was an attack "against all of Serbia and its policy of peace and regional co-operation".
A funeral service for more than 100 victims whose remains were recently identified using DNA analysis was also held on Saturday.
Attending the ceremonies, Bill Clinton, the US president at the time, apologised that it had taken so long to end the war, adding: "I never want to see another killing field like this." | Bosnia's presidency has condemned an attack on Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. | 33496684 |
The general strode out confidently, leading his men on foot straight up the dusty, pot-holed track to Bor, South Sudan's most contested city.
Reinforcements were arriving by truck and by boat, and as the sun rose hundreds of soldiers chanting war songs marched at a dusty camp on the banks of the Nile.
Morale was high.
We would be "eating dinner, if not lunch" in the city the rebels had held for days, we were told.
But progress was slow as the convoy moved along the road to Bor, and within 50km (30km) of the city we started to see the evidence of recent fighting.
Bodies on the road, burned out tanks, abandoned villages and military barracks, which both look very similar.
As the convoy staggered and swayed through the pot holes, suddenly things started happening ahead - cars turned around, troops took cover.
There was a burst of firing ahead and then a barrage of rockets fired out into the thick bush beside the road.
It was after the dust had settled that the general decided to walk - leading a column of vehicles to the next camp along the road.
Then it happened again.
This time it was an attack from the front and an ambush from the side, which sent troops into a panic.
Many opened fire - some were shot perhaps by their own side.
One young soldier near us had been hit - the bullet grazed his back and took a chunk out of his neck.
We called for medics, but there were none - we used a field dressing to stop the bleeding and put him in the shade until he could be moved.
He was not critically injured, but with an eight-hour drive down an unpredictable road it was going to be a long journey by boat up the Nile, with the other injured troops.
There were bodies too.
Among them was a very senior general - a man known for his determination to lead from the front - and his death was a blow to morale.
He was shot and injured in the ambush and was being driven back for help when the car was peppered with bullets. He and at least two other soldiers died.
A tank rolled up to secure a village where three long boats landed - each carrying perhaps 150 soldiers.
They were also chanting South Sudanese war songs as they jumped ashore.
While the generals were deciding the next step and still promising we would soon be in Bor, a third attack was launched.
Panic quickly spread across the camp as troops ran back down the road in disarray.
As cars accelerated over the potholes, some soldiers were thrown from the back and at least one was run over.
Guns were thrown down or left and the generals drove back to a rear position miles down the road.
As the sun set we headed south away from the fighting - risking poor roads in the dark rather than the chaos of a night time ambush.
When we hear of "rebel soldiers", the image is perhaps different from the situation on the ground - 5,000 regular troops switched sides on ethnic grounds and now support the rebels.
It is they, and thousands more armed civilians from the Nuer tribal militia, that defend Bor.
This is the army fighting the army with tanks and heavy weapons - and tens of thousands of people here have been forced to flee across the Nile and are now in need of food and clean water.
The longer the talks go on without a ceasefire the greater the incentive for both sides to try and gain the military upper hand and win more chips to bargain with. | Travelling with a convoy of government troops in South Sudan seeking to retake the rebel-held town of Bor, the BBC's Alastair Leithead witnesses the forces coming under attack. | 25627361 |
He's also having to get used to the media and laying out his policies - many of which are quite distinct from the previous leader's.
Mr Corbyn has been highly critical of the government's response to the Calais migrant crisis and says the UK must do more.
He told me: "These are human beings, these are people in desperate situations - they need our help and they need our support.
"There's a very large number of people going over to Calais to take aid and support to them - we should be part of the European programme both for Syrian refugees and other refugees."
His views on immigration are completely at odds with those of the UK Independence Party - whose leader Nigel Farage addressed his annual conference in Doncaster on the issue today.
He questioned how any government could plan for school provision, for health provision if you don't know in a couple of years time - to the nearest million - how many people would actually be living in the country.
And the Kent Conservative MP and former immigration minister Damian Green also says open-door immigration would be irresponsible.
But Mr Corbyn insists that immigration is positive for the UK.
"Our health service, our education service, much of our industrial development in Britain, has been greatly enhanced by the work done by people who have made their homes here, paid their taxes here, worked very hard here and given us this amazing cosmopolitan society that we have."
He said instead of being afraid of immigration people should welcome the opportunities it brings.
No doubt that's a message he'll want to get across to the troops as they meet in Brighton this weekend.
He'll also want to address other key issues such as the housing shortage, investment in infrastructure and his opposition to benefits reform.
On top of all that he'll want to prove that he can reach out - not only to Labour members who elected him - but also to those supporters in the South East who abandoned his party at the last two elections.
Mr Corbyn knows it's an uphill struggle but he told me Labour are ready to win back in the South East and he's looking forward to that struggle.
The Labour conference is being held in Brighton between 27 and 30 September. | Less than two weeks since he was elected to lead the Labour Party with a huge majority, Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for his first conference as leader in Brighton. | 34362565 |
Officers were previously told not to shoot drivers of moving vehicles because of the additional dangers it posed, Simon Chesterman said.
But he said the approach had changed in the wake of attacks such as those in Westminster, Nice and Berlin.
He added officers now had ammunition to penetrate doors and windows.
Last month, Khalid Masood killed four people on London's Westminster Bridge when he mounted the pavement in a car and drove into pedestrians.
One of the biggest challenges previously faced by police was the risk of bullets bouncing off the glass on vehicles in such attacks, said Mr Chesterman, of the National Police Chiefs' Council.
"We've seen some very horrible and different tactics lately involving vehicles and lorries," he said.
"Within our policy, we used to talk about not shooting at a moving vehicle because of the danger we might cause if we fired at a driver.
"But if the vehicle is being used as a weapon in the first place, there aren't many tactics available in relation to stopping it, particularly a very large lorry.
"Driving a vehicle in front of it for example is not going to stop it. So you need to shoot the driver," he said.
As part of the change in policy, Mr Chesterman said the tactics of firearms officers were now "far more aggressive".
They are no longer being told to "locate, contain and neutralise" but to "locate and confront", he said.
He also announced that the number of authorised firearms officers available to be deployed across England and Wales is to reach 10,500 by next year - an increase of about 1,500.
In April 2018, there will be about 7,000 armed police from the 43 forces in England and Wales, and 3,500 from other forces, including the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
The government is funding 1,000 extra armed officers, while forces are paying for 500 more.
Mr Chesterman said the capability of armed officers was "phenomenally different" from previous years following investment in recruitment and training.
But he warned that concerns about the way police are treated after fatal shootings could act as a "tipping point" and discourage people from joining or staying on. | Police may now have to shoot terrorists at the wheel of vehicles to stop them being used in attacks, the national lead for armed policing has said. | 39643210 |
Paterson, 59, was convicted over operations on nine women and one man, but there were hundreds of other victims.
He was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three of unlawful wounding, after his trial.
Jurors at Nottingham Crown Court heard last month Paterson had exaggerated or invented the risk of cancer.
The NHS has paid almost £10m in compensation to his victims, while more than 600 private patients will pursue civil action against him later this year.
Ian Paterson: 'He took a pound of flesh for money'
Paterson's operations: What is cleavage-sparing surgery?
The court was told the defendant, of Altrincham, Greater Manchester, urged patients to undergo procedures for "obscure motives" that may have included a desire to "earn extra money".
The trial heard accounts from 10 victims - representing a sample of those he treated - operated on between 1997 and 2011, at the privately-run Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.
Sentencing Paterson, who grew up in County Down, Northern Ireland, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker said: "In pursuit of your own... material rewards, you lost sight of what you were doing.
"Without any regard for the long-term effects, you deliberately preyed on their long-term fears.
"You can be a charming and charismatic individual but you deliberately used those characteristics to manipulate your patients."
Speaking at the sentencing victim John Ingram, who underwent an unnecessary double mastectomy, described Paterson as a criminal who committed grotesque, violent acts.
Another victim Carole Johnson, described him as a "monster".
In a victim impact statement read out in court she said she felt "violated and vulnerable" and had "lost confidence" because of Paterson's actions.
Pamela Jain, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said Paterson had repeatedly abused his victims' trust for more than a decade.
£17.8m
Total damages and defence costs
£9.49m Damages paid
£8.31m Legal costs
256 NHS patients awarded compensation
25 Still waiting for a payout
The specialist prosecutor said: "He knew the procedures were not needed but carried on regardless, inflicting unlawful wounds on his patients.
"The impact of Paterson's actions on his victims has been devastating, from the unnecessary distress of undergoing procedures they did not need, to the scars that will always serve as a physical reminder of what their doctor, Ian Paterson, did to them."
Surgeon 'psychopathic like Shipman'
Paterson 'played God' with patients
Hundreds of other victims seek payout
Complaints about Paterson had been made for years but managers at the NHS trust that employed him "preferred good news to true news", a 2013 report said.
Paterson, who was suspended by the General Medical Council after his arrest, was allowed to carry on operating on women for several years despite serious concerns raised about him by other staff, the report by lawyer Sir Ian Kennedy found.
1,207
patients given a mastectomy, including "cleavage-sparing" operations
675 mastectomy patients have since died
68 of his surviving patients have seen their cancer return
Bosses at Heart of England NHS Trust had failed hundreds of breast cancer patients, it said.
Sir Ian published his findings in December 2013 - more than three years before Paterson stood trial - although the jury was not told about his report.
In the wake of his sentencing, the General Medical Council (GMC) said it was crucial such crimes were prevented from happening again.
Charlie Massey, chief executive and registrar of the GMC, said Paterson's crimes were "deeply shocking acts that betrayed patients' trust".
"It is absolutely right that questions are asked about how this happened and more crucially how the health system can prevent it from happening again," he said.
"As soon as we were made aware of these issues we took action to curb his practice and then suspend him, but his practice went unchecked for so long because some of those in the health system, managers but also his colleagues, had their concerns but failed to report them to us."
The court case centred on 10 patients who were treated at private hospitals operated by Spire Healthcare.
Following the sentencing the firm said it was "truly sorry" for the distress caused to Paterson's victims.
"What Mr Paterson did in our hospitals, in other private hospitals and in the NHS absolutely should not have happened and the sentence handed down today reflects the gravity of the crimes he committed," it said.
Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning | Breast surgeon Ian Paterson has been jailed for 15 years after carrying out unnecessary cancer operations. | 40108558 |
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Brook, the IBF welterweight champion, is jumping two weight divisions to take on unbeaten knockout artist Golovkin.
Welterweight great Leonard came out of retirement in 1987 to beat world middleweight champion Marvin Hagler.
"I want to do what Leonard did with Hagler - use my speed, my footwork and box the perfect fight," said Brook.
"I do fear him. Of course I do. I know he's a big puncher and that nobody wants to fight him for a reason.
"But the fear is positive because it's going to make me super-sharp with cat-like reactions.
"You could see the fear in Leonard's eyes when he was in with Hagler - that's why he was so sharp and zoomed in."
Sheffield's Brook, 30, is unbeaten in 36 professional contests and has made three defences of the IBF welterweight belt he won from American Shawn Porter in 2014.
Kazakhstan's Golovkin, 34, is unbeaten in 35 pro contests, has 32 knockouts to his name and is thought by some to be the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.
If Brook manages to beat Golovkin it would be an even bigger upset than Leonard's victory over the fearsome Hagler, who had not lost for 11 years.
However, while some observers have called the fight a mismatch, Brook believes he might be more effective at 160lb than he was at 147lb.
At the final check weigh-in on 3 September, Brook weighed 168lb, five pounds heavier than his rival.
"I'm interested in seeing what I can do at middleweight because I'm not draining myself and gaunt at the weight," said Brook, one of 14 current British world champions.
"I'm going to be fully hydrated and healthy and bring the speed and the power. I'm excited at how much energy and excitement I'll be giving to everyone once that bell goes."
Brook is attempting to succeed where domestic rival Amir Khan failed - Bolton's Khan jumped two weight divisions to fight then WBC middleweight champion Saul Alvarez in May and was knocked out in six rounds.
Golovkin, whose WBA title is not on the line against Brook, is one of the most avoided boxers in the world - Mexico's Alvarez chose to vacate his WBC title rather than fight him. | Britain's Kell Brook aims to emulate Sugar Ray Leonard when he challenges middleweight king Gennady Golovkin at London's O2 on Saturday. | 37277088 |
Choosing Wisely Wales aims for a more equal doctor-patient relationship.
It comes amid worries up to 20% of treatments at best do no good but at worst could harm patients - something a top doctor has called "clearly unacceptable".
But there are fears the move might be interpreted as an effort to cut costs.
Those behind the movement, which already operates in 18 countries, want clinicians to have "open and honest conversations" about treatments, and say patients should be less passive, have more input and explore all alternatives.
Central to the idea are four questions a patient needs to ask:
Dr Paul Myres, programme leader and chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in Wales, said: "Amazingly, I think in Wales in particular there's still the idea that 'doctor knows best' and, interestingly, some clinicians who come to work here say patients are that little more passive, not so assertive.
"We're encouraging them to be a bit more questioning in discussions with their clinicians."
It has been argued that if patients have "greater ownership" of the care they receive, they are more likely to follow a course of treatment, reject treatments that have little benefit, and may be less likely to return to the doctor.
The approach, it has been argued, could also lead to significantly better results for patients.
Dr Myres admitted "there was likely to be reluctance on both sides" and said the approach could be interpreted as an attempt to save money.
"It's not about cost-cutting, it's about reducing waste," he said.
"If something is wasted on a patient, then a person who really needs that treatment could face a delay."
It is also hoped the approach could help reduce the number of "unnecessary tests and treatments", which could result in shorter waiting times for patients with a genuine need.
This could include patients demanding antibiotics for colds and sore throats or those expecting scans for basic back pain.
But it could also involve serious diseases such as cancer, where patients might feel under pressure to accept invasive treatment which could leave them with a worse quality of life.
WHAT DO PATIENTS THINK?
John Skipper, a retired serviceman, was formerly on the board of Community Health Councils in Wales. In 2011, aged 60, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he described as "a wake up call".
"I needed to know more about my condition, I needed to know what might be the best outcome for me and be part of a team looking after me and not be on the outside looking in," he said.
"With cancer there are many interventions possible and some carry more risks than others. Removing the prostate gland can have some real side effects.
"I was talking with my consultant and with other professionals about what other options were available to me.
"They found that useful and for me it took away a lot of the stress and I felt empowered and part of the team looking after me."
He said the Choosing Wisely concept meant patients were part of their own care.
"It enables the doctor to do what they're trained to do. You're guiding them to an option that they can perform, but at least you can say 'this is what I would prefer'," he said.
"We often have that discussion about our car when we take it in for a service, so why can't we have that discussion about our body?
"I think this whole culture has to be win-win for the NHS. It's not a bottomless pit of money but it has capability and it's about optimising the capability you have and dealing with realism."
WHAT DOES THE MEDICAL PROFESSION THINK?
Graeme Paul-Taylor, a physiotherapist and lecturer at Cardiff University, has a lot of experience working with patients with lower back pain.
He said there was a growing belief that sending people for a MRI scan was the "gold standard" to provide all the answers.
"What's important is to exercise and to get moving and for a lot of people that gets them the results they need," he said.
"But over the last couple of decades, with the real quality and sensitive scanning and imaging that can be done, people are starting to believe that the structural changes that are seen on a MRI scan are the cause of the pain.
"We know if you were to scan people with no symptoms of back pain you're still likely to see those changes."
Dr Ffion Williams, from Prestatyn, Denbighshire, said the initiative was all about sharing information with patients.
"It's allowing people to make their own decisions so we're a conduit for information. It's not the old system that we're the doctor and 'you do what we tell you'," she said.
"Sometimes it's going to be a decision from a patient that I'm not going to agree with but it's also allowing the patient to make the decision but knowing they've had the right information to make it."
Dr Myres, a former Wrexham GP, concedes consultation times may need to be lengthened.
"Really good conversations need more time up front - even though research suggests actually it can be done in 10 minutes," he said.
"But the payback is if a patient fully understands and is involved in the decisions, they are more likely to comply and less likely to come back."
Choosing Wisely Wales is the first campaign of its type to be launched in the UK and is being led by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges Wales, in partnership with Public Health Wales and Community Health Councils. | Patients in Wales are being urged to take more control of decisions about the care and treatments they receive, as part of a new medical movement. | 37352128 |
Fedor Konyukhov, 64, is due to set off from Northam, Australia, in a craft designed by Cameron Balloons of Bedminster.
Konyukhov will try to beat by about 48 hours the late American Steve Fossett's 2002 record of just under 15 days.
Cameron's gondola design carries control, navigation systems and oxygen.
The design and build will be similar to that used by Mr Fossett, but with more modern materials and technology.
It will also house a sleeping bunk, water supplies, food rations, life-saving emergency equipment, first aid supplies and clothing.
Mr Konyukhov said he had chosen Cameron as its staff were "the key people" to rely on.
Konyukhov has received a good luck message from Sir Richard Branson who said he was "enormously excited" about the plans.
Sir Richard's own attempt at a round-the-world balloon flight ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in December 1998.
Konyukhov said he hoped to "inspire unity" and remind young people to "stay romantic, no matter what your age". | A Russian adventurer has visited the Bristol factory making a helium balloon for his world record attempt to circumnavigate the globe. | 35480714 |
Van Niekerk ran 100m in 9.98 seconds in Bloemfontein on Saturday to add to his 19.94 personal best over 200m and 400m world title-winning 43.48.
The 23-year-old was helped by a legal 1.5m/sec tailwind and 1,300m altitude.
"Wow! Finally reaching my dream of sub 10," Van Niekerk wrote on Instagram alongside a video of the race.
Former world and Olympic 200m and 400m champion Michael Johnson wrote on Twitter: "Sub 10, sub 20, sub 44. That's crazy. Great things could be ahead."
Van Niekerk will only run the 400m at the Olympics in Rio this summer. | South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk has become the first athlete to run under 10 seconds for the 100m, 20 seconds for the 200m and 44 seconds for 400m. | 35794869 |
18 March 2017 Last updated at 11:30 GMT
He made the claim during a speech in Fife where he set out his "third way" option for the constitutional future of Scotland.
Mr Brown believed there was a strong case for more powers to be handed to Holyrood once the UK's exit from the EU is completed.
He explained to his audience at the Festival of Ideas in Kirkcaldy that an independent Scotland today would face greater consequences then it might have done in 2014.
Mr Brown said: "If we leave the British single market, which was not the proposal in 2014 of the Scottish National Party, then a more dramatic set of consequences follow." | Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown said that if Scotland were to chose independence then it would mean the country having no access to the UK single market. | 39315292 |
That takes the number of cars recalled over the issue to 2.79 million.
The affected vehicles have a defective part which "could cause the airbag inflator to rupture and deploy the airbag abnormally in a crash".
Toyota, the world's biggest carmaker, said it had received one report of a seat cover burn due to the issue.
It added that it was also modifying the remedy that it was using to address the issue.
Toyota said that it had so far been replacing the part in the affected vehicles based on the serial number provided by the parts maker, Takata Corp.
However, it added, that the serial number in some of the cases was incomplete and had led to those cars not being serviced, despite receiving the initial recall notice.
Toyota said it would now replace the inflator in "all involved vehicles", irrespective of the serial numbers.
As a result, it said, it was re-notifying 350,000 owners globally to bring their cars back for servicing.
"For vehicles which were inspected and did not receive a replacement inflator, we will re-notify the owners and replace the inflator with a new one," the firm said in a statement.
Another 1.24 million owners - who had received the initial recall notice but did not bring their vehicles in - are also being sent a fresh notice.
The vehicle models affected by the issues include Corolla, Camry Yaris and Vios. | Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has added 650,000 cars - all in Japan - to the recall it issued last year over a defect in passenger airbags. | 27791832 |
Between April and June only 70% of patients with an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer started their treatment within 62 days.
The government target is 95%. All health trusts missed the target last quarter.
The figures also show a sharp fall in the number of women first seen within 14 days of an urgent referral for suspected breast cancer.
Only 64% - 916 of the 1,433 referred patients - were seen within the time limit in June, down from about 80% in June 2015.
Some 9,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in Northern Ireland each year, with incidence rates going up by 11% over the last decade.
Cancer Research UK said the figures showed cancer services are not coping.
"With the number of people being diagnosed with cancer on the increase, the way services are currently organised is not sustainable," said Margaret Carr from the charity.
"This is why a new cancer plan that sets out a long-term vision and identifies priorities and where to target resources, is needed.
"Now is the time to set out new ambitions for cancer in Northern Ireland, along with details of how these goals will be achieved." | Targets for cancer waiting times have again been missed in Northern Ireland. | 37507487 |
It was spotted at Antrim Grammar School on Tuesday morning.
"Several attempts were made to safely and humanely manage the animal," a PSNI spokesperson said.
"Regrettably, after consultation with the vet working with officers at the scene, we were required to shoot the stag as it had become very agitated and posed a risk to the public."
The office of the Police Ombudsman has been informed.
Greg Kayne, chairman of the British Deer Society in Northern Ireland, told the BBC: "The professionals on the ground would have had to make a risk assessment and that risk assessment would have been focused on public safety.
"Unpalatable though the outcome was for the deer, it sounds as though they had few if any options other than to do what they actually had to do."
School principal Hilary Woods said the incident had upset some pupils.
"We had to basically keep the school in lockdown until the situation was resolved, and there were a number of pupils who were obviously very distressed when they heard about the final outcome," she said.
"It actually ran past some of the pupils when they were outside.
"It could have caused damage and it would have been far worse for me as a principal to deal with, if a child or a member of the public had been injured."
Pupil Jordan McKelvey, who is 17, said: "I just saw the deer trapped and a lot of people and hearing the gunshots and it was quite distracting in class.
"It was quite sad and distressing to see that and hear it." | A police armed response unit has shot dead a large wild stag on the grounds of a school in County Antrim. | 34781021 |
Three more carcasses of the whales were found in recent days on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.
That brings the total of right whales found dead in the Gulf of St Lawrence to to at least nine since 7 June.
Each death is a conservation concern given that only around 525 of the species are believed to still exist worldwide.
The Marine Animal Response Society (Mars), a charity organisation dedicated to the conservation of marine mammals, said on Monday that the recently discovered carcasses are in poor condition.
Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) confirmed that at least one is a new specimen and was able to collect valuable images and samples for genetic analyses from the remains.
They say it is critical to examine every animal to gather as much information in order to pinpoint the cause of death.
Mars director Tonya Wimmer said that there is no one particular cause behind the concentrated spate of deaths.
"Some had signs of blunt trauma, one had chronic entanglements, we do know that there were other animals out there swimming with fishing gear on them, so it seems sadly for this population to be the standard story for them," she said.
Threats facing the whales include ship collisions, fishing gear, habitat degradation, and contaminants and noise.
But Ms Wimmer says the number of deaths in a short period and in one area - Gulf of St Lawrence - is "exceptionally unusual".
DFO, Mars and the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative are among the Canadian and American organisations trying to figure out why so many right whales are dying this summer in those waters.
Ms Wimmer suggests it is likely a combination of factors, including more whales in the region at this time of year and increased human activity.
Right whales have been using the Gulf of St Lawrence more over the last four to five years and science, government and industry have been slow to catch up, she says.
"It just happened to be in this year the bottom fell out," Ms Wimmer said.
Just five right whales were born this season and many of the whales found dead were of reproductive age.
In July, Canada took some additional steps to protect the North Atlantic right whale, including a partial early closure of the snow crab fishing area where whales are known to frequent and asking commercial fishing vessels to be on alert.
DFO has conducted necropsies on six of the dead and results are expected in the coming weeks.
Their habitat ranges from the coastal waters of the south-eastern United States to the Gulf of St Lawrence. | The deaths of critically endangered right whales in Canadian waters is raising alarms. | 40745232 |
The owners of Schoolcardshop announced on Wednesday that they had ceased trading, putting thousands of orders under threat.
But Devon-based Harrier LLC, which owns the Truprint brand, has promised to deliver all the cards before Christmas.
Harrier said the move was "a goodwill gesture".
Edinburgh-based Schoolcardshop converted schoolchildren's artwork into Christmas cards, with schools retaining a proportion of the money spent by families on the products.
On news of the company's demise, many parents took to social media expressing concern that their children's artwork had been lost.
Others were also worried that they would not receive their money back for orders placed.
But Schoolcardshop told BBC Scotland on Thursday that Harrier would pick up all the outstanding orders, with "the majority of deliveries" expected by the end of next week.
In a statement, Schoolcardshop owner Dynamic Colour said Harrier had stepped in after it explored "all options to preserve Schoolcardshop long enough for parents to receive their products".
Dynamic Colour added: "We appreciate the high level of anxiety this has understandably caused parents, children and schools who we worked with on this project.
"We would have liked nothing more than to have been able to complete this project successfully, but sadly we have been unable to do so.
"We have lost a company we love, our livelihoods and over a decade of hard work. But we are extremely happy and relieved to be able to give this positive news at the end of it all."
Harrier commercial director Darryll Allen said: "This is a goodwill gesture and there will be no charge. We are absolutely sure we can get all these cards out before Christmas." | A photo-gift supplier has stepped in to take over Christmas card orders for schoolchildren, following the collapse of a printing firm. | 38170897 |
GB teams played at the 2012 Games in London but will not feature in Rio.
The FA wanted to see a joint side take part this summer too, until its Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh counterparts objected.
But FA participation and development director Kelly Simmons said: "The door's definitely open from our side to continue discussions."
A change at the top of Fifa, with Gianni Infantino replacing Sepp Blatter as president, has given the FA fresh hope that the home nations could be reassured about their status as stand-alone footballing countries if they support a GB team.
At Wednesday's launch of the Women's Super League season, Simmons stressed the importance of the Olympics for the development of the women's game.
And she rued the lack of a joint women's team in Brazil, to build on the success of England's World Cup performance last summer: "It's a massive blow. Here we are still working hard to promote the game, build a new fan base and take it to new audiences, and those big events are really critical in that."
The other home nations object on the basis that London was a one-off as hosts, and they fear a united British team could risk their independence as football nations within the sport's world governing body, Fifa.
"I hope that somehow we can find a way with the home nations and Fifa in the future, if we qualify, to take part, because the players deserve it and the women's game needs it," Simmons added.
A crowd of 70,584 watched Great Britain's women beat fancied Brazil 1-0 to reach the quarter-finals in 2012.
Simmons' comments echo those of British Olympic chiefs who said they would campaign to restore a GB side for 2020 following a third-place finish at last year's World Cup for England's women. | The Football Association wants a Great Britain women's football team to be revived for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. | 35828464 |
The Garda Representative Association said the action includes "a unilateral withdrawal of services" on 4, 11, 18 and 25 November.
The Republic's Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald said she was disappointed by the news.
It follows the rejection of pay proposals negotiated with the Department of Justice last week.
The decision was taken at a meeting in Tullamore, County Offaly, to discuss proposals aimed at resolving their dispute over pay and conditions.
The Garda Commissioner has issued a statement encouraging all groups to remain engaged with the talks process on Garda pay and conditions.
Nóirín O'Sullivan said the best outcome for all, including the public, would be for these issues to be resolved within the process.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald said: "Resolution of any outstanding issues of concern to the GRA can only be addressed through engagement between the parties and my Department continues to be available to discuss those issues.
"It would be most unfortunate if, rather than engaging further, action were to be contemplated that would not be in the best interests of our communities or An Garda Síochána."
Assistant Garda Commissioner Jack Nolan said the idea of gardaí (Irish police officers) withdrawing services for four days was unprecedented and urged those involved to continue to negotiate a suitable solution.
GRA General Secretary Pat Ennis said the organisation wanted pay restored and conditions addressed immediately.
Speaking with Irish broadcaster RTÉ, he said the GRA was exhausted from negotiations that have proved "fruitless".
Mr Ennis said the "organs of the State" had failed GRA members, compelling them to take industrial action.
"It's a momentous day. It's unprecedented, but that's what our conference decided on today," he said.
"It's not a choice that was taken easily.
"We are a vocational group of people and it was with great reluctance that this decision was made today, but we felt that we had no option to achieve a successful outcome to our negotiations."
Mr Ennis said that if strike action was taken, emergency services would still be operational.
He said it was not a "blue flu" - where gardaí would call in sick - but a withdrawal of services.
Such action could leave individual gardaí and those members in charge of the Garda Representative Association open to both criminal and disciplinary proceedings.
It is an offence under the Garda Síochána Act for any person to induce or do anything to induce a Garda to withhold his or her services, or commit a breach of discipline.
A person guilty of such an offence faces a fine of up to €3,000 and/or up to a year in prison if convicted in the District Court, and a fine of up to €50,000 and/or up to five years in prison if convicted in the Circuit Court.
It is also a breach of discipline for any Garda to do anything that obstructs the operation or implementation of official policy, directions or instructions.
The GRA does not have trade union status and therefore its members, gardaí, do not have the protection of the law to withdraw their services.
They are excluded from the protections under the Industrial Relations Acts that exist for other persons engaged in Industrial action.
Yesterday, a GRA ballot of their 10,500 rank-and-file members revealed that over 95% were prepared to take industrial action.
Meanwhile, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors has announced it will hold a special delegate conference on 17 October in Athlone to discuss proposed industrial action.
The rejected proposals between the GRA and the Department of Justice included a restoration of rent allowance for new recruits to the force and the reinstatement of increments backdated to 1 July.
It is also promised that promotion opportunities for gardaí would increase on a pro-rata basis as the force expands to reach a strength of 15,000 as committed to by the Government.
The rent allowance would be restored in two phases, the first 50% on 1 January 2017 and the second 50% from 1 January 2018.
Gardaí would be required to work an extra 15 hours per year but that could be done in 15-minute blocks. | The organisation which represents An Garda Síochána (Irish police) has voted to take industrial action. | 37504669 |
Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom rejected an invitation to appear before AMs while junior minister George Eustice cancelled at two days' notice.
Committee chairman Mark Reckless wrote to Mr Eustice saying he was "extremely disappointed" by the cancellation.
The UK government said it was in "regular dialogue" with Welsh farmers.
The committee is currently carrying out an inquiry into the future of farming in Wales post-Brexit, and was due to take evidence from Mr Eustice on Thursday.
"Given the importance of agricultural and farming policy in Wales, it is vital that AMs and the people of Wales hear directly from Ministers in the UK Government," Mr Reckless wrote.
"Furthermore, ensuring that future agricultural policy is a success in Wales and at a UK level will depend heavily on cooperation and mutual respect between the Assembly and UK Government.
"The Committee's recent experience in trying to engage with UK ministers brings into doubt the UK Government's commitment to that spirit of cooperation and respect."
The letter goes on to say that the committee offered alternative dates and a video conference to both ministers.
Ms Leadsom, who visited south Wales earlier in February, did agree to meet Mr Reckless as the committee's chairman, but "subsequently cancelled that meeting at short notice", the letter added.
Mr Reckless now says he expects "as a matter of courtesy and respect" that Mr Eustice attend a meeting of the committee on 15 February or 8 March, "the only remaining sessions at which we can take evidence for this inquiry".
Plaid Cymru environment spokesperson Simon Thomas was critical of the UK government, saying: "Given the first hint of accountability for their decisions, Westminster ministers withdraw into their protective shells, far away from Welsh scrutiny."
John Mercer, director of farmers' union NFU Cymru - which did meet Ms Leadsom on her visit to Wales - said: "It is vital that all stakeholders and politicians work together to help achieve our common goal of delivering a thriving agricultural industry in Wales and the UK post-Brexit which can deliver for all of society."
Farmers' Union of Wales managing director Alan Davies added: "We very much hope that this is a postponed opportunity, rather than a failure to start discussions."
A spokesman for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "Although it has not been possible for the minister to give evidence to the committee on this occasion, we are in regular dialogue with the industry in Wales and Welsh farmers and we will be working closely with them on future agriculture policy." | UK ministers responsible for farming have been criticised for an "apparent refusal to engage" with the assembly environment committee's Brexit inquiry. | 38906863 |
The small town of Perugia in Italy was shocked when Meredith Kercher was killed in 2007.
The nature of her murder and the subsequent trial of US student Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito brought the case to the attention of the world's media.
The case has remained in the public eye ever since, with guilty verdicts, acquittals and reinstated verdicts dominating the headlines.
The story inspired British director Michael Winterbottom to make his latest film, based on the 2010 book Angel Face by US journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau.
The book offers her account of the trial, but the film is not a retelling of actual events, nor an opinion on the verdict.
Speaking at the Toronto Film Festival, Winterbottom - who previously directed Steve Coogan in The Trip and 24 Hour Party People - said he was "never interested in making a straight reconstruction".
"This is a case where you've got American, British and Italian press all giving different perspectives on the story. There's massive amounts of interest and coverage," he said.
"After meeting Barbie in Rome, I felt like maybe using the journalist would be a good starting point for [questioning] why the media is so obsessed with murder and these kinds of stories and trials."
The film, which will screen at the London Film Festival in October, focuses on Thomas Lang (Daniel Bruhl), a film director offered the chance to adapt a book by US reporter Simone Ford (Kate Beckinsale).
The book recounts the Siena trial of an American student, here named Jessica Fuller, for the murder of her flatmate, one Elizabeth Pryce.
Ford takes Lang behind the story of the trial, meeting with the journalists embedded in the case and others involved.
Despite evident parallels to his own experience researching the film, however, Winterbottom stressed that the resulting feature is not a documentary of that experience and the character of Lang is not autobiographical.
“Where we could borrow things we did," he went on. "After I met Barbie, I also met other journalists in Rome and we went up to the first day of the appeal in Perugia.
"But the structure of the film is it starts off as one type of film - it begins with a murder trial - and then evolves from that.
"There are a lot of parallels between the film Thomas Lang is trying to make and our film, but ours isn't the one Thomas is trying to make.
"One of the differences is his financiers want a film about the two girls and the murder case so he doesn't make it - whereas we did make ours, so clearly our financiers were more relaxed about it."
British fashion model Cara Delevingne also stars in the film as its only truly fictional character - a carefree British student named Melanie who is studying in Italy.
She serves as a parallel to both the student who was murdered and the one on trial, who inspires Lang to make a film about love and innocence rather than violence and crime.
Winterbottom said the model's lack of acting experience was not a consideration when casting. Nor was he worried her own media profile would overshadow the content of the film.
"The role of Melanie is really important. I met lots of people for the role, and as soon as I met Cara I thought she would be great.
"She's someone who had energy and optimism, of wanting to enjoy life."
Having been exposed to the world and working practices of journalists, the director said his opinion of the profession has not changed much from what it was before he began his research.
"I like journalism, but I think the way the media works in general means journalists have to do things that are not necessarily the right things to do,” he told the BBC News website.
"On the first day of the trial, there were hundreds of journalists around. Everyone was racing when they arrived at court, and the big story was the colour of [Amanda Knox's] skirt and the length of her hair.
"It’s an incredible shame, given journalism is so important as to how we see and understand the world. We had 400 really intelligent people running around, only to tell you the colour of her skirt.
"They could be telling much more interesting stories than that."
The Face of an Angel will be released in the UK in 2015. | Inspired by the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, Michael Winterbottom's The Face of an Angel - which has had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival - explores the media and public's obsession with violent stories. | 29172934 |
Petricola, 31, suffered multiple fractures and a head injury after crashing in practice last year and was in a coma for several days.
The Frenchman was flown home after the meeting but made a full recovery and raced at Scarborough last weekend.
"I am ready for it," said Petricola of his impending North West 200 return.
"I don't remember why I crashed but I accept it. I am a big boy.
"When you ride in a road race you know it is possible to have a hard crash like this. It is not a problem."
He careered into a lamp post when he slid off his BMW superbike at Primrose corner during superstock practice, a day after his birthday.
Just days after Petricola's accident, English rider Simon Andrews, 29, died after crashing in a race at the same North West meeting.
Petricola broke two vertebrae, his left arm, his right elbow and right leg, several ribs and suffered perforated lungs in the huge impact as well as a serious head injury.
Media playback is not supported on this device
"I hit my head and there was bleeding on my brain because of the trauma," recalls the Frenchman.
He was treated within seconds of the crash by the travelling doctors from the race's medical team and transferred by helicopter to the Royal Hospital in Belfast.
In a coma, his life hung in the balance for several days before he eventually regained consciousness.
"At first I had no memory at all," added the native of Longwy, a small town on the Belgian border.
"I didn't even know that I was at the North West when I woke up. I just saw all my family there at the bedside.
"For me there was a bit of pain, but for my family and friends it was a very hard experience when I was in the coma."
Petricola will make his North West return with the same Ice Valley BMW team that he raced for last season.
"This year I want to have a lot of fun at the North West," he added.
"I would love to be the fastest newcomer but I know my place, my level, because there are very fast riders from England and Ireland there."
The Frenchman's near-death experience has done nothing to diminish his attraction to the Northern Ireland event, which takes place this year from 10-16 May.
"On my first lap I thought it was incredible.
"It was so fast and bumpy, especially the bit in the town, under the railway bridge. I love this track."
Petricola raced at a 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans before making his return to the roads in Scarborough last weekend.
"There was no fear. I am happy now, it is OK."
North West 200 event director Mervyn Whyte says he will be delighted to see Petricola back racing at Portrush.
"Franck has made a great recovery and we will welcome him back to the paddock," added Whyte.
"There are always risks in road racing but the North West organisers work tirelessly year after year to try to minimise the dangers.
"The medical facilities that we have in place at road races in Ireland provide the fastest response times for any motorsport event in the world.
"Franck owes his life to the men and women who provide that service and we are all very grateful to them for the brilliant work that they do." | French rider Franck Petricola is set to race at the North West 200 next month despite suffering life-threatening injuries at the meeting last year. | 32340789 |
Clough, who has been granted permission to discuss the managerial role at his former club, saw the visitors lead through Luke Murphy's 30-yard strike.
Lloyd Dyer's breakaway effort put an increasingly impressive Burton 2-0 up.
Conor Washington's shot gave hope of a comeback, but the visitors held on to climb out of the relegation zone.
The Brewers had lost seven of their previous eight Championship matches and eight from nine in all competitions, but stifled the home side in the first half.
Murphy's stunning 12th-minute effort was Burton's first goal in their fifth match of 2017 and gave them the belief to seize control.
Dyer's finish through keeper Alex Smithies' legs, after exchanging passes with loan signing Lasse Vigen Christensen, put Clough's men well on top.
Substitute Washington scored at the second attempt - his fourth goal of the season - as QPR switched to two up front.
Dyer twice wasted good chances to make it 3-1 after good work by Jackson Irvine while Washington forced a fine save from keeper Jon McLaughlin.
But the Brewers were able to see out just their second away league win of the season and ensure a first defeat in five matches for QPR.
QPR manager Ian Holloway:
"It's bitterly disappointing, because I thought we could play better than that and give a better show of ourselves.
"I'm sick and fed up of feeling like I do now. It's not how I want to feel. We have to assert ourselves on games and we didn't do it in the way I wanted us to.
"I need to bring the right sort of people in if I can. We've got lots of things spinning at the moment. Which way are they going to drop? We're not sure yet.
"But hopefully they'll give me the right sort of selection problems so I can build a team that can win different types of games."
Burton Albion manager Nigel Clough:
"It was important to get out of the bottom three and we've done that. This game today was so important for the club. Whatever happens in the next few days happens.
"The most important thing was to not let it get in the way of what happened today. This game has been the priority all along.
"The players have been great in training as always - you saw the work-rate."
Match ends, Queens Park Rangers 1, Burton Albion 2.
Second Half ends, Queens Park Rangers 1, Burton Albion 2.
Offside, Burton Albion. Jackson Irvine tries a through ball, but Cauley Woodrow is caught offside.
Attempt missed. Idrissa Sylla (Queens Park Rangers) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Pawel Wszolek with a cross.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Cauley Woodrow (Burton Albion) because of an injury.
Attempt missed. Darnell Furlong (Queens Park Rangers) header from the centre of the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Kazenga Lua Lua with a cross.
Foul by Conor Washington (Queens Park Rangers).
Matthew Palmer (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Joel Lynch (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Cauley Woodrow (Burton Albion).
Substitution, Queens Park Rangers. Jamie Mackie replaces Jake Bidwell.
Substitution, Burton Albion. Cauley Woodrow replaces Marvin Sordell.
Massimo Luongo (Queens Park Rangers) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Massimo Luongo (Queens Park Rangers).
Luke Murphy (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt missed. Idrissa Sylla (Queens Park Rangers) right footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Ryan Manning with a cross.
Foul by Jake Bidwell (Queens Park Rangers).
Lucas Akins (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Corner, Queens Park Rangers. Conceded by John Mousinho.
Jackson Irvine (Burton Albion) is shown the yellow card.
Ryan Manning (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Matthew Palmer (Burton Albion).
Foul by Ryan Manning (Queens Park Rangers).
Damien McCrory (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Kazenga Lua Lua (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Lucas Akins (Burton Albion).
Substitution, Queens Park Rangers. Ryan Manning replaces Michael Doughty.
Foul by Joel Lynch (Queens Park Rangers).
Marvin Sordell (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt saved. Conor Washington (Queens Park Rangers) right footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Massimo Luongo.
Substitution, Burton Albion. Lucas Akins replaces Lasse Vigen Christensen.
Attempt saved. Lloyd Dyer (Burton Albion) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Jackson Irvine.
Attempt blocked. Idrissa Sylla (Queens Park Rangers) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Kazenga Lua Lua.
Foul by Idrissa Sylla (Queens Park Rangers).
Tom Flanagan (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt saved. Ben Turner (Burton Albion) header from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by John Mousinho with a cross.
Corner, Burton Albion. Conceded by Nedum Onuoha.
Attempt missed. Lloyd Dyer (Burton Albion) left footed shot from the left side of the box is too high. Assisted by Jackson Irvine.
Delay over. They are ready to continue. | Nigel Clough put aside the ongoing speculation about becoming Nottingham Forest boss to guide his struggling Burton Albion side to victory at QPR. | 38700813 |
Real won their last 12 league games, but Barca ended with five victories in a row after a blip in April saw their lead over Real closed from 10 points.
"We're all disappointed, but with 38 matchdays played, we can't change anything now," said Zidane, who has won 21 of his 26 games in charge.
"Barcelona deserved to win La Liga."
Luis Enrique, who has won the title in both his seasons in charge of Barcelona, agreed with his rival.
"It was a deserved title which shows that the team knows how to bounce back from a bad spell.
"We played very well over the full season, we were on top of the table for many weeks and the most consistent team wins the title."
Captain Andres Iniesta has now won eight La Liga titles, a third of Barcelona's total league championships. Barca have won six of the last eight titles - including two in a row.
"La Liga is glorious," the Spain midfielder said. "It is the competition of stability, the one we are able to win year after year. Whenever you win the league, it is a great season."
Defender Gerard Pique said: "This is a historic time for the club. This is a unique generation of footballers with loads of talent and who are achieving things that have never been done before.
"We had a negative run that meant we had to fight right to the last, but we got our prize in the end."
Both sides have a cup final yet to play. Barca face Sevilla in next Sunday's Copa del Rey final, while Real face city rivals Atletico in the Champions League final on Saturday, 28 May. | Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane conceded Barcelona are deserved La Liga champions after losing out to their arch-rivals by one point. | 36294900 |
Public Health England (PHE) said it was investigating 11 confirmed cases following visits to Huntley's Country Store, Samlesbury, near Preston.
PHE advised anyone feeling unwell after attending a lambing event staged at the farm outlet between 29 March and 24 April to seek medical help.
It said the farm store no longer posed a risk to the public.
The health body said three people remained in hospital following complications from the E. coli O157 infection. A fourth person has been discharged and is recovering at home.
Source: Public Health England
PHE said all contact between animals and the public at the premises had now ceased so there was no longer any risk to the public.
PHE consultant for Cumbria and Lancashire Dr Ken Lamden said the outbreak is believed to have started before Easter.
"Investigations are still on going and all public health measures have been put in place," he said.
"The owners are co-operating fully and we are working closely with them and with colleagues across health and local authorities."
He said symptoms of E. coli O157 included bloody diarrhoea, which could be serious, or milder forms of the infection which are usually "self-limiting" and clear within seven days.
Dr Lamden said the best protection against E. coli O157 was thorough handwashing particularly after contact with animals, after going to the toilet, after handling raw meat products and before eating. | Four people have been treated in hospital after an outbreak of E. coli linked to a farm shop in Lancashire. | 27238990 |
They take the number of suspended executives to eight.
Tesco said, "We have asked three employees to step aside to facilitate the investigation into the potential overstatement of profits in UK food.
"We will provide an update on the investigation with our interim results on 23 October."
Tesco shocked investors in September with the revelation that it may have overstated its profits by £250m.
At the start of this month, Tesco said it had been notified by the Financial Conduct Authority that it was under investigation over the guidance error.
An internal investigation is being carried out by the accountancy firm Deloitte and law firm Freshfields.
The company has a new boss, Dave Lewis, who took over as chief executive from from Philip Clarke on 1 September.
He has made clear that the actions taken against the Tesco executives are not "disciplinary or an admission of guilt".
How the company came to overstate its future profits by such a sum is not yet clear. In the meantime, billions have been wiped off the value of Tesco's stock market value as a result of the misreporting.
Others who have been suspended include former commercial director Kevin Grace and UK managing director Chris Bush.
Tesco's share price has plummeted 50% in a year as falling sales, boardroom reshuffles, and increased competition from rival supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl have unnerved investors.
This week, Mr Lewis refreshed his board with the appointment of Compass boss Richard Cousins and former Ikea boss Mikael Ohlsson as non-executive directors.
Tesco still has a 28.8% share of the UK grocery market, according to retail analyst Kantar Worldpanel. | Supermarket giant Tesco has asked three more executives to leave their posts as the fall-out continues from its £250m profit guidance overstatement. | 29613946 |
Uefa released a list of 641 clubs who received a revenue share of 150m euros (£127.74m) and Bala earned £17,942.
Artell played for Gibraltar in the Euro 2016 qualifiers and Bala chief executive Nigel Aykroyd said the money was a pleasant surprise for the club.
"It's not a run of the mill situation for a club of our size," he said.
Aykroyd continued: "It is quite rare and it's a very nice amount to receive. The money is very welcome, We invest in the team and we invest in the playing standards at Maes Tegid."
Centre-half Artell, who was appointed manager of League Two side Crewe Alexandra in January, joined Bala from Wrexham in July 2014 and went on to make 39 appearances for the Welsh Premier League club.
During his two years at Bala, 36-year-old Artell was called up by Gibraltar and played in five Euro 2016 qualifiers.
It was enough to see the Welsh club receive a five-figure benefit, with Aykroyd admitting that when they signed Artell they had no idea they would receive such a cash boost.
"We were unaware when we signed Dave that he was going to get called up for international duty. It did come as a surprise to us," said Aykroyd.
"It's a very nice bonus for us. Unfortunately we don't have any more Gibraltar players, but we are looking further afield now."
Italian giants Juventus topped the list of Uefa beneficiaries followed by Liverpool who received £2,890,773.
Apart from Bala, only two other Welsh clubs received money for releasing players for the tournament.
Championship club Cardiff City earned £337.662 while Premier League side Swansea City received £1,136,760. | Welsh Premier League side Bala Town have received nearly £18,000 for sending defender David Artell to play for Gibraltar. | 38847826 |
Members of the Northants Vespa and Lambretta Club are trying to buy the £1,500 scooter, which belonged to former chairman Dennis Lyon.
Mr Lyon, 64, who died two years ago, had decorated the Vespa PX200 with more than 80 mirrors, 20 headlights and other adornments.
His widow Faith is going into a care home and is selling the scooter.
The club, which has 80 members, has already raised £1,000 in two weeks through donations and a charity event but is now looking for help with the "final push".
Sixty shares, which will also allow people to become members of the club's sister group the Northants Vespa and Lambretta Heritage Trust, are available at £25 each.
Shareholders will be able to ride on the Vespa whenever they want and have pictures taken with it. They will also have a say in its future and would profit should it be sold.
Individual donations will cover maintenance and insurance costs.
Club chairman Martyn Peacock said whenever Mr Lyon turned up there would be two or three new ornaments on the scooter.
He said: "Every time I look at it there is something I hadn't spotted before."
The scooter, which is about 14 years old, comes with a sidecar which Mr Lyon added after he was diagnosed with diabetes.
"His love for it was that great he was determined to get over that handicap and so he had a sidecar fitted to the scooter," Mr Peacock said.
If the scooter is saved, the club will display it at Northampton's Picturedrome cinema and take it to events around the county, including an annual ride-out in memory of Mr Lyon, who was a founder member of the club in 2005. | Scooter enthusiasts are offering shares in a unique bike and sidecar to save it for their club. | 30098269 |
Kennaugh completed a lap of the 37.7 mile (60km) Mountain Course in one hour 23 minutes and 48 seconds.
It was six seconds faster than former Olympic individual pursuit gold medallist Boardman's time, set during the Isle of Man Cycling Week in 1993.
Two-time men's British road race champion Kennaugh, 26, recorded his lap during a time-trial event on Sunday.
The Onchan rider received £3,000 from a local sponsor for breaking the record.
He said: "Taking the record means a great deal to me being from the island, especially with it having been held for so long by one of the most prolific time trialists of his generation.
"Even now I still remember being inspired by Chris when he wore the Yellow Jersey at the Tour de France in the mid-nineties".
Conditions were almost perfect in the early section of the course although riders later reported strong headwinds on the nine-mile mountain course section from Ramsey to the Creg Ny Baa. | Isle of Man cyclist Peter Kennaugh has broken Chris Boardman's 22-year record for cycling a lap of the TT course. | 34392853 |
The lender, which made a pre-tax profit of £39.7m in 2013, witnessed a hefty drop in lending to UK consumers.
Wonga admitted it needed to address "the problems of the past" and is predicting another loss in 2015.
Last year, it apologised and agreed to pay compensation to customers after using letters from fake legal firms when chasing debts.
That left it with a compensation bill of £2.6m to be paid to 45,000 customers, not all of whom have been located yet.
It also had to write off thousands of unsuitable loans. Debts worth £220m from more than 300,000 customers were cancelled, owing to a failure to assess properly whether those borrowers could repay.
The company said that revenues fell by 31% in 2014 compared with 2013, driven by the cut in lending to UK consumers.
It reported a 36% fall in lending volumes fell to £732m last year, from £1.1bn in 2013. It made 2.5 million loans in the UK in 2014, compared with 3.7 million in 2013, while total customer numbers in the UK fell from about one million to 575,000.
Chairman Andy Haste, who arrived last summer, said: "We said Wonga would be smaller and less profitable in the near term as we focus on creating a sustainable business that lends responsibly and transparently to customers who can afford to borrow from us.
"We know it will take time to repair our reputation and gain an accepted place in the financial services industry."
Wonga, along with other payday lenders, now faces strict new rules from the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which ruled that customers must face stricter affordability checks.
The regulator said it expected a large number of payday loan operators to exit the market as a result. Wonga said the new regulations had led to a 12% rise in operating costs.
Lenders are no longer allowed to roll over a loan more than twice, nor attempt to reclaim payment from a borrower's account more than twice. There is also a cap on the cost of lending in the UK.
Wonga's rate of defaults on loans by struggling borrowers stood at 6.6% last year, compared with 6.9% the previous year.
Paul Miles, chief financial officer, said costs had been cut. Earlier this year, the company announced 325 job losses - more than a third of its staff. The posts were being cut in teams that supported the UK business, affecting offices in London, Dublin, Cape Town and Tel Aviv.
Wonga said that it would expect a loss in 2015, but launch new products and seek debt funding in 2016, although it offered no outline of what those products might be.
Mr Haste said that the company needed to move away from "the almost exclusive reliance on one product and one price".
He argued there was still a place in society for short-term credit offered by payday lenders.
"But only if they put their customers first and lend responsibly. Regrettably, that has not always been the case at Wonga," he said.
In July last year, Wonga cancelled its British TV ad campaign, saying it did not want to be associated with "anything which inadvertently attracts children", although they continued for a time in Spain and Poland.
The company reported growth in international lending in 2014.
Wonga also sponsors Newcastle United football club, but has agreed to remove its logo from all children's replica shirts from the 2016-17 season. | Short-term lender Wonga made a pre-tax loss of £37.3m in 2014 amid a major overhaul of the controversial company. | 32392544 |
Water levels on the River Sava are expected to peak later, threatening the country's biggest power plant.
It comes after the worst floods in the Balkans for decades left more than 35 dead and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
In Bosnia-Hercegovina, landslides have buried houses and disturbed landmines laid during the war in the 1990s.
The floods are also affecting Croatia.
Three months' worth of rain fell on the region in just a few days, causing rivers to burst their banks and sweep into people's homes.
Flood alerts are still in place in many areas of Serbia and northern Bosnia, according to the EU Floods Directive.
Twelve bodies were recovered from the Serbian town of Obrenovac on Sunday, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said. It takes the toll in Serbia to 17.
Meanwhile at least 19 people at believed to have died in Bosnia. The authorities have warned that the death toll could still rise.
The rain has finally stopped in Belgrade, reports the BBC's Guy Delauney in the Serbian capital.
But officials fear water flowing from neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia could cause a "flood wave" on the River Sava on Sunday evening.
Emergency workers and volunteers have stacked sandbags along the river in Belgrade and other towns such as Sabac and Sremska Mitrovica.
Belgrade was basking in the Sunday sunshine, with the mercury pushing 25 degrees - just as it should be at this time of year. But on the banks of the River Sava, there was no time to relax in the shade.
Scores of young volunteers lined up along the stretch of river from Brankov's Bridge to Ada Ciganlija island - along the bicycle path which would normally be packed with weekend riders. Members of the emergency services marshalled them as they crowded around lorries delivering loads of sandbags, before passing them hand to hand, down the line.
"I came to help my country, my people, my city," said Mladen Kos, who has worked around the world in the hospitality industry. "We're waiting for the Danube river - if it rises up tonight, then the Sava river will be blocked and we will be in big trouble."
Serbia's prime minister has warned people that they cannot fight nature. But the people here are still doing all they can to stop it flooding their homes.
"We are doing all we can," said Prime Minister Vucic.
The main concern is whether flood waters could knock out the Nikola Tesla power plant, which supplies much of the country, our correspondent says.
The coal-fired plant is in Obrenovac, south-west of Belgrade, where most of the population have now been moved to safety.
Flood levels in the town dropped on Sunday, enabling officials to move people to safety by road.
There are also concerns at another power plant, at Kostolac, west of Belgrade, where the Mlava river broke through a second ring of flood protection, Tanjug news agency reports. Kostolac provides 20% of Serbia's electricity, it says,
Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic has joined calls for help.
"Support and solidarity for my people in Serbia!'' he wrote on his Twitter account.
Almost one-third of Bosnia has been affected. The north-east is worst-hit, with houses, roads and railway lines submerged.
Bosnian Serb police chief Gojko Vasic said the situation had been particularly difficult in Doboj "because the flood waters acted as a tsunami, three to four metres high", the Reuters news agency reported.
"No-one could have resisted," he said.
Humanitarian aid and technical equipment have arrived from Russia and EU countries, officials say.
Bosnian Security Ministry spokesman Admir Malagic said that about one million people - more than a quarter of the country's population - live in the affected area.
Chairman of the Bosnian three-man presidency Bakir Izetbegovic said that his country is facing a "horrible catastrophe", the Associated Press reported.
"We are still not fully aware of actual dimensions of the catastrophe," he said. | Emergency workers in Serbia are preparing for a "flood wave" on one of the country's main rivers. | 27459184 |
Brian Auchterlonie, 27, has been jailed for 40 months for attacking Casey Thomson, 32, between Rutland Square and Festival Square on Tuesday 12 July.
Auchterlonie had pleaded guilty previously to assault and robbery.
Ms Thomson's mother could hear her calling out: "Mum, mum, I'm being mugged". Ms Thomson suffered facial injuries and her purse was stolen.
Sentence had been deferred at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for a background report and risk assessment.
Fiscal Depute, Gerard Drugan, told Sheriff Thomas Welsh, Ms Thomson was talking to her mother on her mobile phone as she walked from George Street to Rutland Square in the early evening.
"It was unusually quiet" said the fiscal. Ms Thomson had two bags over her shoulder.
She looked behind her and saw a man approaching her. He said: "Give me the bags", there was a struggle and he repeatedly hit her in the face and head.
Ms Thomson gave her purse to Auchterlonie to stop the attacks. He grabbed it and ran off.
The fiscal said the attack lasted only 80 seconds and all that time Ms Thomson's mobile was still active.
Ms Thomson, who was covered in blood, was treated at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
CCTV footage showed Auchterlonie hiding as his victim walked past, running after her, carrying out the attack and running away.
He also dropped his pen which provided DNA evidence.
Defence solicitor, Steve Donald, told Sheriff Welsh his client had no recollection of the incident.
He said Auchterlonie was currently subject to a supervised release order.
Sheriff Welsh said that in the recent past Auchterlonie had committed four offences of assault, robbery and assault to injury.
Det Con Alison Wyllie, of Police Scotland, said: "I am very grateful for the public response to the media appeal.
"As a result of this appeal we received information that ultimately led to his arrest and conviction." | A mother who was talking to her daughter on her mobile phone heard her being attacked and mugged in Edinburgh. | 37913903 |
The 30-year-old was due to defend his title against Jonathan Barros in Las Vegas in January but the fight was called off at 24 hours notice.
Argentinean Barros was not able to meet the medical requirements of the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
Selby will now face Spaniard Gago at London's O2 Arena, on the undercard of David Haye's fight with Tony Bellew.
"I know the main event isn't going to last too long so I wanted to make sure there was a nice juicy few fights on the undercard," said Haye.
"After his [Selby's] fight fell through, I really felt for him boiling his massive frame down to nine stone and not getting any work that night."
An IBF statement said Selby will remain champion for the non-title fight.
"While the situation with Barros gets clarified the IBF has agreed to allow Selby to fight a non-title bout above the weight limit," the federation said.
Selby is looking to keep his schedule in line with Northern Ireland's Carl Frampton. The duo could meet this summer, especially with doubts surfacing over Frampton's trilogy contest with Leo Santa Cruz.
Media playback is not supported on this device | Wales' IBF featherweight world champion Lee Selby will fight Andoni Gago in a non-title bout on 4 March. | 38986034 |
The creation of MediaCityUK led to 4,600 jobs between 2011 and 2016, the Centre for Cities think tank noted.
But, its report stated the impact on the wider region was "negligible".
The BBC however, said it was "surprised" by the findings and cited other studies which highlighted positive effects of the move.
Salford city mayor Paul Dennett also said the BBC's move north had been "a significant catalyst" for the "continued development and regeneration of Salford and Greater Manchester".
The Centre for Cities (CFC) released its findings as several UK cities, including Liverpool, consider bidding to be the new home of Channel 4.
As well as the BBC, MediaCityUK is home to ITV, the University of Salford and several bar and restaurant chains.
But the CFC report said many jobs had come from displacement of businesses from other parts of Greater Manchester.
Paul Swinney, its principal economist, said: "While the BBC's move has been positive for Greater Manchester in other ways, it has done little to create new jobs across the city region, or to encourage new businesses to set up in the area.
"The lesson for cities bidding to be the new home of Channel 4 is that if they are successful, they should not expect to see a major boost to their economies beyond the jobs that the relocation would directly bring."
But, a BBC spokesman said all other "independent assessments" of the Salford move recognised it had been of "considerable benefit".
"The BBC was crucial to the development of MediaCityUK, bringing thousands of jobs, millions of pounds of investment and supporting the wider creative industries," he said.
"To suggest our investment only benefits Salford, and not the rest of the region, seems very strange given the scale and size of our operation today."
Mike Blackburn, chairman of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership, added: "Quite frankly a report that says the BBC has not had a positive impact on Greater Manchester is ridiculous." | The economic benefits of moving public sector jobs out of London should not be overestimated, a study of the BBC's Salford development claims. | 40878150 |
Campaign group UK Uncut said hundreds had protested in town and cities such as London, Manchester and Northampton.
It said plans aimed at saving £220m from the criminal legal aid bill in England and Wales would "block access to justice for millions of people".
The Ministry of Justice says legal aid costs too much and can not be "immune" to efficiency commitments.
Proposals for possible savings include stopping defendants with a disposable income of more than £37,500 from automatically receiving legal aid, and curbing prisoners' right to legal aid.
Legal aid costs taxpayers about £2bn every year, with criminal defence making up more than half of the expenditure.
The government says the situation is unsustainable and wants to see fewer, bigger organisations providing legal aid as part of a streamlined system.
However, the Bar Council has argued this would result in the end of the long-standing right of a defendant to choose a legal aid solicitor, saying people would effectively be allocated a representative on the basis of cost.
Some groups have also expressed fears that the changes could deny justice to the poorest in society.
UK Uncut said protests had taken place in London, Manchester, Hull, Liverpool, Northampton, Cambridge and Norwich on Saturday.
In London, demonstrators gathered on the Strand at about 12:00 BST to set up a roadblock.
Many protesters sat on the road and others put their bicycles in the way of traffic.
The area was reopened around two hours later when the demonstration was contained in a smaller area.
Protesters also held a mock trial for Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, and attached a banner to the fence of the court building which warned: "No justice, no peace."
The Metropolitan Police did not comment when asked about the number of protesters.
But the City of London Police said it had warned the group they were stopping the emergency services from travelling around the capital.
UK Uncut said roadblocks had also been set up in Manchester, Northampton and Cambridge.
Spokesman David Conway said: "The government's plans will block access to justice for millions of people.
"We're blocking roads to make a stand against that and to make it clear how strongly people around the country oppose these outrageous plans.
"People will have to represent themselves in court and get compensation much later than they should."
An MoJ spokesman said: "We have one of the best legal professions in the world, but cannot close our eyes to the fact that - at around £2bn - legal aid is costing too much."
He said the government's planned reforms would create a sustainable legal aid system that would "still be one of the most generous in the world".
The spokesman added: "At a time when major financial challenges are being felt by businesses and households across the country, the legal sector cannot be immune from the government's commitment to getting better value for every penny of taxpayers' money we spend."
Plans to remove the right for defendants in criminal cases in England and Wales to choose their solicitor under the legal aid system were scrapped in July.
The government had planned to put the onus on lawyers competing for contracts, but has said it now recognises that choice is seen as "fundamental". | Demonstrators have staged events across England in opposition to planned changes to legal aid. | 24410807 |
Mamunur Roshid, 24, travelled to the country with four friends in October 2013.
Iftekar Jaman - who left the UK separately in May last year - and Hamidur Rahman were previously killed in the fighting.
The Jami Mosque in Portsmouth said Mr Roshid's parents told them their son had been killed on Friday in Syria.
Abdul Jalil, chairman of the mosque, said "The parents are very upset. I went to visit them and they told me that he had been killed in Syria. This is very difficult for them."
The Foreign Office said it was aware of reports that a British national had been killed in Syria.
Mr Roshid's death comes as Britain's most senior police officer revealed at least five Britons are travelling to Iraq and Syria to join IS every week, with an estimated 500 already fighting with the group.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: "Those numbers are a minimum. There may be many more who set out to travel to another country and meandered over to Syria and Iraq in a way that is not always possible to spot when you have failed states and leaky borders."
He warned the return of these individuals to the streets of the UK was "a risk to our communities".
Sir Bernard added: "The drumbeat of terrorism in the UK has changed. It's faster and it's more intense."
Mr Roshid left the UK with Mr Rahman, Assad Uzzaman, Mehdi Hassan and Mashudur Choudhury.
Choudhury returned to UK after a few weeks and was arrested at Gatwick Airport.
In May, he became the first person in the UK to be convicted of terrorist offences in connection with the conflict in Syria.
The two other men, Mr Uzzaman and Mr Hassan, are still believed to be in Syria.
Ifthekar Jaman, from Southsea, Hampshire, told the BBC before his death he joined IS as he felt it was his "duty" because Muslims were "being slaughtered".
Mr Jaman's family told the BBC that he was killed while fighting forces loyal to the government. | A third man from Portsmouth who went to fight in Syria for Islamic State (IS) has been killed, his mosque has said. | 29707186 |
They have seen rises in the number of annual tests carried out of between 40% and 470% over four years.
Workers cannot be made to take a drugs test, but if they refuse when the employer has good grounds for testing, they may face disciplinary action.
Business leaders' increased awareness of workplace drug use is a large factor behind the growth, said LGC Group.
It added that the adoption of a drugs-testing policy is "mainly due to insurance purposes".
The four companies are Alere, Synergy Health, LGC Group and BioClinics. The last two saw rises of 100% and 470% respectively over the four years in the number of drugs tests they conduct annually, although they started from a smaller base.
Lianne Gray, LGC Group's strategic account manager for occupational drug testing, said employees in safety-critical roles - such as operating heavy machinery or driving - and government agencies were most likely to be screened.
But she said there was a growing trend for drug testing to be conducted in "more normalised industries", including retail and health companies, as businesses look to "safeguard not only the business, but also the reputation in the field they work in".
Ms Gray said there had been changes in the types of drugs for which businesses wished to screen.
"Traditionally we see requests for amphetamines, cocaine, cannabis, opiates," she said. "Now we're seeing more requests for things like ketamine, steroids, and also for novel psychoactive substances - or legal highs as they're otherwise known."
Under current law, businesses must have the consent of employees whom they wish to screen for drugs, and usually this will be in the contract or staff handbook.
Drugs testing is normally performed at random. It is also sometimes enforced prior to employment, on cause - following an accident or incident - or on suspicion.
Stobart Group, which includes the well-known Eddie Stobart haulage business, introduced a drugs-testing policy three years ago.
The services and infrastructure company, which operates London Southend Airport, screens not only its hundreds of truckers but all its employees, including shop workers.
Director of safety and compliance Neil Marston said: "We want to maintain a safe working environment for all our staff. But also for our customers, our visitors who pass through our premises. We're also very proud of our brand and want to protect it."
The increases in drug testing have angered civil liberties groups, who say that the practice is an invasion of people's privacy outside of safety critical roles.
Niamh Eastwood from the drugs advice charity, Release, said they frequently took calls from people who had falsely tested positive for drugs.
Eating poppy seed bread for instance can indicate the presence of opiates in some tests.
She said another problem is that although drug tests may indicate what substances are in the system, they do not indicate if a worker's performance is likely to be affected. | Workplace drug testing has increased significantly in the UK, four leading screening companies have said. | 29465755 |
The news that Daniel Anrig would not be continuing as commander was published in the Vatican's daily newspaper.
He will leave the Vatican after Christmas at the end of an eight-year stint, and be replaced by his deputy.
Since his election Pope Francis has made efforts to reform the Church and make it more open.
The notice in the L'Osservatore Romano said: "The holy father has ordered that Colonel Daniel Rudolf Anrig end his term on 31 January, at the conclusion of the extension of his mandate."
Col Anrig's approach has riled colleagues, with one Swiss Guard telling Italian media "this is the end of a dictatorship", on news of his departure.
No official reason has been given for the dismissal by the Vatican.
The 110-strong Swiss Guard are responsible for the personal security of the Pope.
They have served the papacy for five centuries, first coming to Rome to protect Pope Julius II in 1506.
Pope Francis, according to Vatican sources, is unhappy at the Swiss officer's excessively strict military discipline imposed on his non-commissioned officers and men.
Colonel Anrig was head of a criminal investigation team in Switzerland before his appointment by former Pope Benedict in 2006.
He was investigated by the Swiss Red Cross and by Amnesty International for alleged human rights violations during a raid he led on an immigrants' refugee centre in 2003, but has denied any wrongdoing.
Pope Francis is apparently also unhappy at the commander's refurbishment of a large and luxurious penthouse apartment for his family above the barracks inside the Vatican where the Swiss Guards are quartered.
The Pope has a relaxed relationship with his security staff, knows most of them by name, and often accepts only reluctantly the advice of those who warn him of possible dangers to his life from lax security arrangements. | Pope Francis is removing the commander of the Swiss Guards, with the pontiff reportedly unhappy at the officer's strict authoritarian style. | 30320800 |
Elliot Handley, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, was discovered at a property in The Grove late on 26 May.
A post-mortem examination revealed he had suffered multiple blunt force injuries to the head.
Simon Bennett, from Dorchester, appeared at Bournemouth Magistrates' Court and will appear at Winchester Crown Court on Monday.
The 43-year-old did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody. | A man charged with murdering a 46-year-old, whose body was found at a flat in Dorchester, has appeared in court. | 34213173 |
The report by Save the Children says it is impossible to be completely certain how she caught the virus.
However, it said the different safety protocols used for removing visors and goggles, was the most likely explanation.
Ms Cafferkey made a full recovery after being treated in London.
An independent panel, led by Public Health England, reviewed the case.
Justin Forsyth, the chief executive of Save the Children, said: "We will never be 100% sure how Pauline contracted Ebola, but the independent panel found that it is most likely, though not conclusive, she acquired her illness while working at the Ebola Treatment Centre at Kerry Town in Sierra Leone.
"Working under such intense and challenging conditions, however, cannot be without risk.
"Although there is no conclusive evidence, the panel suggests that Pauline's use of a visor, within a context geared to the use of goggles, was the most likely cause of her contracting Ebola."
Visors are recommended by the World Health Organization, and are used by the UK Ministry of Defence.
Save the Children uses goggles.
The full report said both options were equally safe. However, there are key differences in the way the different types of protective equipment are safely removed.
Ms Cafferkey had been trained to use a visor before being re-deployed to the Save the Children centre, but was not able use their goggles "because she could not get them to fit properly," the report said.
Mr Forsyth said 'action might not have been taken quickly' enough to identify any problems.
But he said lessons have been learned.
Speaking after being discharged from the Royal Free Hospital, in London, Ms Cafferkey, from Cambuslang, in South Lanarkshire, thanked staff who she said had saved her life.
She told the BBC: "I am just happy to be alive. I still don't feel 100%, I feel quite weak, but I'm looking forward to going home."
However, she said she was "definitely frightened" having witnessed the virus first hand in Sierra Leone.
"Obviously at the back of my mind I had seen what could happen and what could potentially happen to me."
Ms Cafferkey was treated with blood plasma from an Ebola survivor and an experimental treatment drug closely related drug to ZMapp, which UK nurse Will Pooley was treated with after he contracted Ebola. | The UK nurse Pauline Cafferkey probably caught Ebola by wearing a visor instead of goggles while treating patients, an investigation has concluded. | 31128964 |
29 September 2016 Last updated at 11:42 BST
They blame the traders for causing traffic jam.
The BBC Africa Debate this month is considering whether street trading should be regulated or banned. | The authorities in Nigeria's main city of Lagos are cracking down on street hawkers who sell a variety of items to passing drivers. | 37504832 |
Ms Park told family members that those responsible for the ferry sinking on 16 April would be "punished severely".
The Sewol ferry had 476 passengers on board when it sank - 174 were rescued, and 58 remain unaccounted for.
Prosecutors say the ferry owner ignored safety warnings and allowed the ship to be overloaded.
Ms Park visited Jindo island, close to where the ship sank, on Sunday. It was her second meeting with the family members.
Speaking to relatives, she said: "I feel a sense of unlimited responsibility... it is heart-rending to imagine how you must be feeling."
"A thorough investigation will be conducted to find those who were responsible and criminally at fault... and they will be punished severely," she added.
Authorities are investigating whether the ship sank from overloading and changes in the structure of the ship.
Anger has also been directed at the ship's captain and crew members, who delayed giving evacuation orders.
Last week, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won resigned amid criticism of the government's handling of the disaster.
Divers have been navigating the sunken ship in an attempt to retrieve the remaining bodies. However, the search has been hampered by strong currents, debris, and poor visibility.
Several divers were suffering from decompression sickness, Yonhap news agency reported on Friday. | The confirmed death toll from the South Korea ferry disaster has reached 244, officials say, as President Park Geun-hye met relatives of those on board. | 27274089 |
The head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said banks could move jobs outside the UK if it leaves the single market.
It comes as EU financial services chief Lord Hill announced his resignation.
However, UK economist Gerard Lyons said that despite the EU's "unsurprising" warnings, London would not be displaced as Europe's dominant financial centre.
Many of London's big financial institutions, which employ tens of thousands of UK staff, trade unhindered across the EU under rights known as "passporting".
However, that would be under threat if the UK chooses to leave the single market as part of its withdrawal.
Mr Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said limited access to the EU single market would be the "price" of the UK leaving the EU.
The head of France's central bank also warned that London's banks would lose their "financial passport".
"It would be a bit paradoxical to leave the EU and apply all EU rules, but that is one solution if Britain wants to keep access to the single market," said Francois Villeroy de Galhau, who is also a member of the European Central Bank's governing body.
Following the Leave vote, London's banks have begun to look at shifting some operations outside of the UK. Several European cities have long-wanted to attract business away from London.
Frankfurt and other financial centres across Europe have long coveted London's position as Europe's leading financial sector.
At present London is far out in front, with 414,600 people working in the City of London and a further 145,200 in Canary Wharf, according to 2015 figures.
In contrast, a study showed that Frankfurt's commercial banking sector employed just 73,800 in 2011/12. Frankfurt's entire population is just 687,775, compared with 8.5 million in London.
Up for grabs if the City of London does find its access to the EU curtailed is billions of dollars of trades.
Paris, Dublin and Amsterdam are also said to be eying taking a chunk from London's investment earnings, and numerous banks are said to be considering moving staff from London to locations within the EU.
Only time will tell whether London's access to European markets is reduced. In the meantime, London remains top of the global financial centres index, which ranks competitiveness within the sector.
While London is in first place ahead of New York and Singapore, the next best placed European city is Zurich (6th), which is also not in the European Union.
Frankfurt is in 18th place, followed by Munich (27th), Paris (32nd), Amsterdam (34th) and Dublin (29th).
It may not help the strength of UK negotiations that Conservative peer Lord Hill, the European Commissioner for financial services, has decided to resign.
He is replaced from 16 July by Valdis Dombrovskis, the Latvian commissioner who is vice president for the euro.
On Saturday, Lord Hill said he did not believe it was right for him to carry on with his work, saying "what is done cannot be undone" after the UK voted to leave the European Union.
But Leave supporters said London would remain Europe's financial centre, and that "passporting" would be part of the negotiations.
Mr Lyons, an economic advisor to Boris Johnson, said European cities would find it difficult to displace London as a financial centre.
"We have the depth of skills, knowledge and experience that's hard to replicate," Mr Lyons, who backed the Leave camp, told the BBC.
Passporting for finance firms is a "negotiable issue", he said, particularly as several European banks also use those rules to access the UK.
Continued access to the single market is now the main focus for UK finance firms, according to TheCityUK, a group which represents most of the City of London's big employers.
Earlier, Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, told the BBC that the biggest impact from the UK's Leave vote would be on "issues of finance".
"London is a key indispensible financial centre, and there's nothing like it including New York. What concerns me is that the focus is going to shift to other areas of economic union; Frankfurt, Paris, or what have you," Mr Greenspan said.
US bank Morgan Stanley said on Friday it would "adapt accordingly" to a UK exit from the EU, after reports it could move up to 2,000 of its London-based staff to Dublin or Frankfurt.
The British Bankers' Association, meanwhile, said of Lord Hill's resignation that he "did an important job at a difficult time".
"He worked hard to ensure a more stable and customer-focused banking sector, helping our industry play its full role in promoting economic growth," BBA chief executive Anthony Browne said.
Banks and other financial companies can be authorised to do business in one member state of the EU, or the slightly wider European Economic Area (EEA), and then ply their trade across the region without having to be separately authorised in each country.
The EEA is a grouping made up of the EU, plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein who have access to the EU's single market.
A bank using this system can provide services by offering them from its home base to a customer in another country, or it can establish a branch abroad.
It is widely used by financial firms (not just banks) in the EU. It is also used by companies from outside the EEA, such as Switzerland and the US.
They establish themselves in one place in the EU, typically in London as the continent's dominant financial centre, and use that as their headquarters for selling services across the single market.
If the banking passport is no longer available to British-based firms, then some operations would clearly have to shift to a location inside the EEA.
What is impossible to judge is just how much business, and how many jobs, would be affected. Would any shift be narrowly focussed on those functions serving EEA customers? Or would firms find it more cost effective to move other parts of the business as well?
Read Andrew's full analysis on passporting. | London's financial firms risk losing unrestricted access to the European Union, according to eurozone leaders. | 36628595 |
All on board died when the Bond Super Puma came down in 2009.
Relatives have called for a criminal inquiry, but the Crown Office defended its decision not to prosecute.
Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle said the precautions which might have avoided the deaths included following agreed procedures and communications.
He said the operators had considered replacing part of the gearbox just a week before the crash but did not do so because of a failure of communication with the manufacturer.
Sheriff Pyle said: "During the course of the inquiry there was much discussion about the circumstances which led Bond not to follow the clear terms of the maintenance.
"Bond readily acknowledged that they ought to have done so.
By James CookScotland Correspondent, BBC News
As the families of Flight 85N sat down to face the cameras in Aberdeen, the air throbbed as a helicopter passed overhead.
It was an eerie reminder of why we were here.
Every day hundreds of North Sea oil workers place their faith in helicopters and those who manufacture and operate them.
The relatives of some of those who died say that faith was betrayed twice: once by Bond's failure to operate "by the book" and again by a failure to bring anyone to justice.
Crash relatives 'one big family'
"The essential fact is that everyone in the company well knew that maintenance must be done by the book.
"On one occasion, that fundamental rule was broken. It resulted in the failure to detect a significant fault in the helicopter's gearbox, which possibly - but only possibly - resulted in the crash."
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) pinpointed a catastrophic failure of the gearbox in its examination of the crash.
Sheriff Pyle acknowledged that the exact cause of the gearbox failure which led to the crash could not be fully determined.
He concluded that on the balance of probabilities the spalling - the fracturing of metal - in the gearbox was the probable cause of the accident.
Lawyer Tom Marshall, for the families, said he was pleased the sheriff principal had accepted that the crash could have been prevented if Bond had followed the maintenance manual.
He said there was a need for a wider public inquiry, and that the families wanted to meet the Lord Advocate to discuss the earlier decision not to pursue criminal prosecutions.
Audrey Wood, whose son Stuart died, said: "Safety is absolutely paramount, and everything must be done by the book.
"We, the families, feel let down by the system. We just wanted answers.
"We will never have closure, this will go on and on for us."
Helicopter operator Bond said: "We have always accepted that we made mistakes through honest confusion over telephone calls and emails.
"Lessons needed to be learned, lessons have been learned and lessons continue to be learned.
"We would like to express again our deep sorrow at the 16 lives lost.
"Bond Offshore hopes that Sheriff Principal Pyle's determination brings a degree of closure to the families, friends and dependents of those who died in the tragedy of 2009."
Tommy Campbell, from the Unite union, said it was a "travesty of justice" that there had not been a criminal prosecution.
He also called for the decision to be reconsidered, and added: "These failings have cost lives."
A Crown Office spokesman said Crown Counsel had "fully assessed" the evidence before deciding there was not enough evidence for a prosecution.
"For a criminal prosecution to have taken place, the Crown would have to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The Sheriff Principal makes clear that a reasonable doubt remained over the technical cause of the crash.
"The evidence presented during the FAI has not altered the insufficiency of evidence, therefore the decision not to hold criminal proceedings remains the correct one.
"We will be offering to meet relatives again to discuss the Sheriff Principal's judgement."　
A six-week hearing into the crash was held in Aberdeen earlier this year.
It heard evidence from the helicopter operator Bond Offshore Helicopters and manufacturer Eurocopter, as well as crash investigators.
Senior AAIB operations investigator Timothy Atkinson told the fatal accident inquiry that the gearbox failure meant there was nothing the crew could do - and the crash was "not survivable".
Eight of the victims came from the north east of Scotland, seven from the rest of the UK, and one from Latvia.
The two crew who died were Capt Paul Burnham, 31, of Methlick, Aberdeenshire, and co-pilot Richard Menzies, 24, of Droitwich Spa, who worked for Bond Offshore Helicopters.
The KCA Deutag employees killed were Brian Barkley, 30, of Aberdeen; Vernon Elrick, 41, of Aberdeen; Leslie Taylor, 41, of Kintore, Aberdeenshire; Nairn Ferrier, 40, of Dundee; Gareth Hughes, 53, of Angus; David Rae, 63, of Dumfries; Raymond Doyle, 57, of Cumbernauld; James John Edwards, 33, of Liverpool; Nolan Goble, 34, of Norwich, and Mihails Zuravskis, 39, of Latvia.
The other victims were James Costello, 24, of Aberdeen, who was contracted to Production Services Network (PSN); Alex Dallas, 62, of Aberdeen, who worked for Sparrows Offshore Services; Warren Mitchell, 38, of Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, who worked for Weatherford UK; and Stuart Wood, 27, of Aberdeen, who worked for Expro North Sea Ltd. | An inquiry into the deaths of 16 men in a North Sea helicopter crash has concluded that the accident could have been prevented. | 26529415 |
The 33-year-old will play vigilante Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.
He'll star opposite Megan Fox who will return as news reporter April O'Neil.
The Paramount Pictures film is due out in June next year, following the first movie in the franchise last Autumn, which did well at the box office but was panned by critics.
Stephen posted about his excitement on his Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Amell, from Toronto in Canada, is married with one daughter.
He started his acting career in Channel 4 Queer as Folk and has also been in The Vampire Diaries and New Girl.
Supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio and Will Arnett are also confirmed in the line-up, but details about other cast members aren't out yet.
Variety Magazine reports that six actors were put through their paces over the weekend, but Amell's chemistry with Megan Fox nabbed him the role.
Last year's remake of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was originally a hit in the 1980s, topped the UK box office taking £4.79 million in its first week.
But it wasn't without its critics. The Guardian reviewed it as "total turtle turkey", and the Telegraph didn't mince its words either, calling it, "dreadful".
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube | He's best known as Oliver Queen in the TV series Arrow, but Stephen Amell is set to hit the big screen. | 32144753 |
The protesters are angered by a $700m (£455m) payment made to his bank account from unnamed foreign donors.
It was discovered last month during a probe into alleged mismanagement at the debt-laden state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Mr Najib has denied any wrongdoing.
The rally began on Saturday and continued into Sunday. The pro-democracy group Bersih has also called for protests in the cities of Kota Kinabalu and Kuching on the Malaysian side of Borneo.
Protesters in yellow T-shirts sang the national anthem Negaraku to end the rally at the stroke of midnight, when the country started celebrating National Day - 58 years since independence.
Kuala Lumpur authorities rejected an application from Bersih for a permit and Malaysian police declared the rallies illegal. Access to Kuala Lumpur's Independence Square was blocked.
At the last big rally in 2012, police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters.
Why Malaysians are disillusioned with Najib Razak
Estimates put the number of protesters in Kuala Lumpur at 50,000 to 80,000, though figures issued by the police suggested much lower numbers.
A carnival atmosphere, punctuated by music, vuvuzelas and political speeches, prevailed in the city centre.
The leader of Bersih, Maria Chin, said the protest was not anti-government.
"We don't want to topple the government but we want to topple corrupt politicians," she told the Malaysian Insider.
The demonstrations coincide with preparations for National Day on Monday - the former British colony's 58th anniversary of independence.
Mr Najib said on his blog he did not want a "provocation" to be triggered.
He said: "Whatever the disagreements or misunderstandings between us, National Day should not be a stage of political disputes."
The main accusation against Mr Najib is that he took $700m from the indebted 1MDB, which he established in 2009 to try to turn Kuala Lumpur into a financial hub.
Cabinet ministers have said the money transfers were "political donations" from unidentified Middle Eastern sources, and that there was nothing improper. No further details have been given.
1MDB has said it has never given money to the prime minister and called the accusations "unsubstantiated".
The prime minister retains significant support from the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and from within his party, the United Malays National Organisation.
• The 1Malaysia Development Berhad state investment fund was established under Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2009 to transform Malaysia into a high-income economy.
• Critics say the fund overpaid for many of its investments and spent millions on fees to investment bank Goldman Sachs
• It began attracting attention at the end of 2014 when it started missing payments to creditors. It later emerged that the fund was mired in $11bn (£7bn) of debt.
• Mr Najib has been accused of taking $700m from the fund - a charge which he has denied.
• Malaysia anti-corruption commission said it had verified that the money was a donation from unnamed foreign donors.
Read more: 1MDB, the case that's riveting Malaysia | Tens of thousands of Malaysians protested over the weekend in the capital Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere, calling for Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down over a financial scandal. | 34093338 |
Appointed to the post following the election, he said the decision was taken for personal rather than political reasons.
Mr Edwards said he will concentrate on representing the people of Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.
Arfon MP Hywel Williams has now been appointed to the role. | Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards has stepped down as leader of the party's parliamentary group after only four months in the job. | 34207558 |
Bartholomeo Joly de Lotbiniere, 21, is accused of raping a woman at York University in June 2014 after a drunken night out.
He told a jury at York Crown Court both parties felt "disappointment and regret" afterwards, but what had happened was consensual.
The defendant, of Kensal Rise, London, denies rape and assault.
More on this and other local stories from across North Yorkshire
The former University Challenge contestant told the court the pair had kissed then started to have sex, but he was unable to maintain an erection.
He said the woman told him "you are not very good at this", and suggested they stop and go to sleep.
Describing the encounter as a "failed one-night-stand", Mr Joly de Lotbiniere told jurors he felt embarrassed, got dressed and left.
It was the second time he had sex, he told police, having lost his virginity two or three months before.
The defendant said he never considered what happened was without her consent.
Judy Khan QC, defending, asked: "Was there any suggestion she didn't want what was happening to take place?"
He replied: "No."
The court previously heard the woman sent him a text which said: "I thought I'd let you know I wasn't overly comfortable with what happened."
He had replied: "Neither am I".
Mr Joly de Lotbiniere told police his apologies related to him being unable to have sex with his accuser.
The case continues. | A history graduate who denies raping a fellow student has described what happened as "a failed one-night-stand". | 38917557 |
United paid Monaco £36m to sign Martial on transfer deadline day.
The 19-year-old forward could end up costing £58m with various add-ons.
Speaking at a private function for United's executive ticket holders on Wednesday, Van Gaal said Martial would be of more use to the man who takes over when the Dutchman's contract expires in 2017.
"He is for the next manager," said the 64-year-old.
Van Gaal believes that man will be his current assistant and former Manchester United winger Ryan Giggs.
Speaking to an invited audience of about 1,000 for 40 minutes at Lancashire's Old Trafford cricket ground, Van Gaal said he "feels" Giggs will be his successor.
Although Van Gaal has previously backed Giggs as a future United boss, the club's hierarchy have not confirmed that is their intention.
Giggs joined Van Gaal on stage at one point to answer pre-submitted questions.
The Dutchman praised United's supporters for sticking with him last season when results, especially in the early weeks of his tenure, were poor.
He also said Wayne Rooney, England's new top goalscorer, was one of the best captains he had ever worked with and that he now looked at Sir Bobby Charlton, whose record his captain has just taken, with greater affection having become more aware of his career achievements.
Asked about France international Martial, Van Gaal said: "The fee is ridiculous."
Martial had completed just four 90-minute appearances prior to the start of the season, and Van Gaal added: "The problem is when Manchester United try to sign a player, it costs £10m more. When we are selling one, the clubs always want to get them for less."
There were no questions on the future of goalkeeper David De Gea, whose agent Jorge Mendes was at United's training ground on Thursday.
The 24-year-old saw a move to Real Madrid collapse on transfer deadline day and is expected to be back in the squad to face Liverpool on Saturday (17.30 BST kick-off).
United are reported to be considering offering the Spaniard, twice the club's player's player of the year, a new contract with a release clause.
Meanwhile, it has been suggested that a delegation of senior players spoke to Van Gaal several weeks ago about his rigid approach and training ground methods.
The Dutchman surprised his players by making them train before they could go home upon their arrival back in Manchester from the club's pre-season tour of the United States.
And several national newspapers claim dissatisfaction among the first team squad with the Dutchman's inflexible style of play has also been raised.
United have declined to comment. | Louis van Gaal has told Manchester United fans he bought Anthony Martial for the club's next manager. | 34213412 |
It would make science more important at the highest levels of government, says Sir Paul, a Nobel laureate. But he admits that what he is proposing could be seen as "a deal with the devil".
The government spends more than £3bn each year on scientific research.
This is allocated by seven specialist research councils, which spend on what they regard as the highest quality research without any government interference.
These range from developing new medicines, hunting for new sub-atomic particles and assessing the impact human activities are having on the environment.
It is a system that has led to the UK being one of the best countries in the world in many areas of research.
But Sir Paul believes it could be better managed if the seven research councils were run by an umbrella body called Research UK.
The aim would be to reduce bureaucracy, increase coordination and develop an overarching strategy for scientific research.
Controversially, Sir Paul believes Research UK should have input from a committee of government ministers.
Critics fear that this might lead to political interference in funding science and the loss of grants for areas of research that may seem obscure now - but could turn out to be scientifically important in the future.
Sir Paul, however, believes that reform is needed to "put science at the heart of government".
Under the current system, the government decides how much to spend on scientific research.
But the scientific community then determines how those funds are distributed.
The so-called "Haldane principle" is that money should be spent on the best science and that decision should be determined by experts in the field.
Sir Paul believes that should continue but a more nuanced approach is now required.
The proportion of money each research council has received has remained more or less unchanged for decades.
But in that time the areas of research that each research council funds, such as physics, biology, medicine, engineering and the environment, have changed dramatically.
It may well be that research in each of these areas has accelerated equally and that it is right that the proportion of funding each receives should remain unchanged.
But the point Sir Paul is making is that even if such an assessment has been made, no-one knows about it.
There is a suspicion from outside that each separate area of the research community jealously guards the money that has been passed on to them for generations.
Sir Paul's concept for Research UK is to create an umbrella body where such discussions can be had openly.
But what about his idea of inviting in the politicians?
He wants ministers with an interest in science to talk to officials at Research UK.
In particular, Sir Paul seems to want the Chancellor to formalise his growing interest in scientific research by chairing the group of ministers.
Is that asking for trouble?
Is there not a danger that ministers will want money spent for new labs in marginal constituencies, pet projects, and funding taken away from areas that don't match current political priorities?
Sir Paul believes they won't and that the scientific community can marshal persuasive arguments.
"Politicians are very sensible people, particularly in this country," he told me.
"We absolutely have to talk to politicians. We, as scientists, cost a lot of money and we have to justify what we do.
"We have to engage with politicians if we are to maintain the support for science which is for the public good and promotes the economy.
"We have to have a proper political discussion - and I want to promote that interface."
Sir Paul is an extremely nice man.
But is he in danger of thinking everyone else is as nice as him and takes the same collegiate, enlightened view as he does of the way the world works?
One concern is that ministers and their mandarins simply don't understand science and that if they are given an inch they will take a mile.
There might be pressure to cut funding for the search of obscure sub-atomic particles, for example in order to spend more on materials science which might have a greater benefit to the economy.
Sir Paul believes that the research community will be able to stand up for itself.
He is clear that he wants the seven research councils to remain as they are - but argues their relative budgets should be reviewed periodically.
"What I am proposing strengthens the research base. To have a more joined-up research strategy.
"So instead of seven individual research strategies we have a combined voice and a proper platform for a strategy.
"I think a good interaction between politicians and scientists is not only good for the scientific endeavour but society."
The elephant in the room is next week's spending review.
Science funding has been relatively protected by George Osborne.
It has been frozen and ring-fenced since 2010 by a Chancellor who has become increasingly amenable to research. He has become convinced that it can be a useful tool for his plans to increase UK productivity.
In order to maintain or possibly improve on the deal they struck five years ago the scientific community will have to give George Osborne something back.
And a little more meddling by the Chancellor may be a price they may well be prepared to pay for a good settlement in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Follow Pallab on Twitter | One of the UK's leading scientists, Sir Paul Nurse, has proposed giving politicians a greater say in the way scientific research is funded. | 34871075 |
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Chesham should have been ahead at half-time after Tom Lockyer fouled Brad Wadkins, but Rovers keeper Lee Nicholls saved Dave Pearce's resulting penalty.
But the seventh tier side did take the lead when Blake's powerful shot from 25 yards caught out Nicholls.
Shane Gore made a string of saves late on as Chesham held on.
Ellis Harrison and Jermaine Easter were among those thwarted by the visitors' keeper as Rovers applied late pressure in the search for an equaliser.
Chesham, who sit 75 places below Rovers in the football pyramid, last made the first round of the FA Cup in 1994.
Victory sees the Generals progress to the second round for only the second time in their history, the first coming in 1980 when they were knocked out in the third round by Cambridge United.
Former Rovers striker and current Chesham player-coach Barry Hayles was given a warm ovation when he appeared as a 72nd-minute substitute, minutes before he supplied the assist for Blake's winner.
Match ends, Bristol Rovers 0, Chesham United 1.
Second Half ends, Bristol Rovers 0, Chesham United 1.
Foul by Ellis Harrison (Bristol Rovers).
George Casey (Chesham United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Bradley Wadkins.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Stephen Hamilton-Forbes.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Bradley Wadkins.
Substitution, Chesham United. Stephen Hamilton-Forbes replaces Matt Taylor because of an injury.
Attempt saved. Jake Gosling (Bristol Rovers) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Toby Little.
Attempt saved. Jermaine Easter (Bristol Rovers) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Foul by Chris Lines (Bristol Rovers).
Bradley Wadkins (Chesham United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
James Clarke (Bristol Rovers) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Barry Hayles (Chesham United).
Foul by Tom Lockyer (Bristol Rovers).
Ashley Smith (Chesham United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Shane Gore.
Attempt saved. Ellis Harrison (Bristol Rovers) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Substitution, Chesham United. George Casey replaces Ryan Blake because of an injury.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Barry Hayles.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Ashley Smith.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Curtis Ujah.
Attempt blocked. Jermaine Easter (Bristol Rovers) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked.
Foul by Chris Lines (Bristol Rovers).
Ryan Blake (Chesham United) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt missed. Tom Lockyer (Bristol Rovers) header from the centre of the box misses to the right following a corner.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Nick Beasant.
Attempt blocked. Jermaine Easter (Bristol Rovers) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.
Goal! Bristol Rovers 0, Chesham United 1. Ryan Blake (Chesham United) right footed shot from outside the box to the bottom left corner.
Attempt blocked. Billy Bodin (Bristol Rovers) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Corner, Bristol Rovers. Conceded by Ryan Blake.
Foul by Jake Gosling (Bristol Rovers).
Bradley Wadkins (Chesham United) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Substitution, Bristol Rovers. James Clarke replaces Daniel Leadbitter because of an injury.
Substitution, Chesham United. Barry Hayles replaces David Pearce.
Toby Little (Chesham United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Billy Bodin (Bristol Rovers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Toby Little (Chesham United).
Stuart Sinclair (Bristol Rovers) wins a free kick on the right wing. | Ryan Blake's strike sent Southern League Premier Division side Chesham into round two of the FA Cup at the expense of League Two Bristol Rovers. | 34691159 |
Gunmen claiming to be security personnel took Afrah Shawqi al-Qaisi from her home in Baghdad.
After being freed late on Tuesday, she told NRT television: "The treated me well. They just interrogated me and thank God they found me not guilty."
Hours earlier, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had said investigators believed the kidnapping was both politically and criminally motivated.
Ms Qaisi, who writes for the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, and is also an employee of the Iraqi culture ministry, campaigns against corruption and government mismanagement.
The day before she was abducted, the 43 year old had published an article expressing anger at how armed groups were able to act with impunity.
"If the state is anxious to preserve its prestige, it should hold accountable whoever uses weapons illicitly," she wrote for the Aklaam website.
Iraq is considered one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. Seven were killed in the country in 2016, according to press freedom group Reporters Without Borders. | A prominent Iraqi female journalist who was abducted last week has been freed. | 38510102 |
Torfaen council said moving post-16 provision to a new £20m facility in Cwmbran from September 2019 would benefit pupils.
But unions fear experienced staff could be lost through redundancies.
They said some pupils could also face longer journey times and fewer course choices.
The council said the "anticipated funding environment" would mean a wider range of academic courses would be available than would otherwise be the case.
But there have been calls for the Welsh Government to intervene.
In 2015, a plan for a larger college with an engineering school of excellence was rejected.
This second proposal is for a smaller college without the engineering school to replace sixth forms at St Albans, Croesyceiliog and Cwmbran secondary schools.
It would be run on the council's behalf by Coleg Gwent, which already provides academic and vocational courses across south east Wales.
School inspection body Estyn said it was likely the plans would at the least maintain the current standards achieved by the pupils.
But it added the council had not considered the effect on pupils from low-income families and did not sufficiently outline how disruption would be minimised.
Sophie Toovey, an English teacher in Pontypool, said moving the sixth form "creates more barriers for students."
Sophie Toovey, an English teacher at St Albans in Pontypool, said: "We have a lot of students from further up the valley and if we close down our sixth form and we have a college built further down in Cwmbran that creates more barriers for disadvantaged students to access further education.
"We also feel strongly that pupils want to stay in sixth form because it's a nurturing environment where they're familiar with their teachers - that relationship's been built up since Year 7."
NUT Cymru secretary David Evans said as redundancies were part of the plans, there was a danger of losing experienced teachers.
"There is nothing in the proposal that suggests Coleg Gwent will be able to match the high quality of provision, pastoral care or continuity of education that has delivered these rewards in the past and that is a major concern for the youngsters, their parents and the wider community," he said.
Jane Setchfield of NASUWT added: "High quality teaching staff could be lost to the community with no measurable gains."
A council spokesman said the proposals offered a "far wider range and quality of academic courses" and would remove unnecessary duplication and spend.
The council agreed some pupils would have to travel further, but said for others it would be closer than current arrangements and it was supported by direct bus services, with investigations under way looking at highway improvements. | Teachers and unions have called for plans to remove sixth forms from English-medium schools to be blocked. | 39068685 |
Judge Dredd was created by Greenock-raised writer John Wagner and Spanish artist Carlos Ezquerra.
The comic strips have been adapted for two movies, one starring Sylvester Stallone as the futuristic lawman.
The first definitive collection of all the Dredd stories, which began in 1977, will be released in January.
The Mega Collection will include previously unpublished sketches and designs, including artwork of Dredd as a zombie by British artist and designer Brendan McCarthy.
Illustrations by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague will also be among the previously unseen art.
London-based British comic 2000AD, which has carried many of the Dredd stories, and publisher Hachette Partworks will release the collection as a fortnightly 80-issue series.
Set in the 22nd Century, Dredd and his fellow enforcers act as judge, jury and executioner in Mega-City One - a sprawling North American metropolis of 400 million inhabitants.
Its co-creator Wagner moved from the US to Scotland when he was 12 and went on to work for Dundee publisher DC Thomson.
Later, during a spell as a freelance, he worked with Pat Mills, who went on to become a legendary Dredd writer, from a shed at Mills' home in Fife.
Among the artists to work on the comic strips have been Fort William-born Colin MacNeil and Cam Kennedy, who lives on Orkney.
Kennedy's other work included illustrating a story for Marvel which sees S.H.I.E.L.D boss Nick Fury come to Scotland to fight terrorists who had a base at the top of Orkney's Old Man of Hoy.
Last year, Scottish writer Emma Beeby became the first woman to write a Judge Dredd comic book story in the character's almost 40-year history.
The Dredd comics have been the inspiration for two movies.
Released in 1995, the film Judge Dredd had Stallone in lead role.
The script for 2012's Dredd was written by Wagner, Ezquerra and Alex Garland. It starred Lord of the Rings actor Karl Urban as Dredd and Game of Thrones' Lena Headey as the main villain. | Previously unseen sketches of one of the UK's best-known comic book characters are to be published for the first time. | 30402725 |
The 23-year-old, who hopes to challenge for an Olympic medal in Rio, ran two minutes, 00.57 seconds, just 15 hundredths off her personal best.
Muir enjoyed a superb 2015 season which included a stunning 1500m win in the Oslo Diamond League meeting.
She also recorded a fifth-placed finish at the World Championships in Beijing.
Muir will hope to secure her place in Rio at the British Championships, which double as the Olympic trials, in Birmingham from 24 to 26 June. | Scotland's Laura Muir declared herself "very happy" after starting her season with an 800m victory - a meeting record - in Montbeliard, France. | 36431352 |
Legend has it the park in Mevagissey was named Hitlers Walk after a dictatorial councillor in the 1930s.
Signs were taken down in 2005 by the now-defunct Restormel council after complaints the name was offensive.
But the parish council decided to reinstate the nameplate; a decision described by a Jewish group as "outrageous".
Kehillat Kernow, which represents the Jewish community in Cornwall, has called for a boycott of the town if the sign is reinstated.
Harvey Kurzfield, from Kehillat Kernow, said: "I think it's outrageous and completely unfeeling."
The parish council clerk said he had received a number of complaints about the sign.
Council chairman Mike Roberts confirmed the authority would be reviewing its decision but declined to comment further.
James Mustoe, Cornwall councillor for Mevagissey, said: "It's a difficult one. As a local person it has been known as Hitlers Walk.
"But I would advise the parish council to put an explanation as to why it's called that." | Plans to reinstate the name Hitlers Walk at a park in Cornwall will be reconsidered after complaints. | 31092792 |
Almost 2,000 homes and more than 1,000 businesses in the area were affected by flooding over Christmas last year.
The new scheme is in addition to almost £10m awarded from central government to support flood recovery in the area.
The council funding will also be used to improve flood incident management systems.
Read more about this and other stories from across West Yorkshire
More than £60m has already been made available by the government for major flood defence schemes in the Calder Valley, which are currently being examined by the Environment Agency.
The council's scheme will look at how it can deliver other low cost flood prevention work and develop projects for natural flood management.
It will also offer support for businesses with hardship grants and in helping companies in making their properties more flood resilient.
The council also plans to hire additional staff to speed up grant processing for homeowners and to increase the size of the council's flood team. | A £3m fund to invest in flood prevention and resilience schemes in Calderdale has been approved by councillors. | 36713610 |
Two bodies were recovered from the ruins of the Rigopiano hotel, in the central Abruzzo region, where rescuers battled the elements to reach the site.
Searchers said they had not given up hope of finding survivors despite finding no signs of life.
The avalanche struck on Wednesday after multiple earthquakes in the region.
Two people who were outside the hotel at the time of the avalanche survived.
The earthquakes, four of which were stronger than magnitude 5, terrified residents of rural areas already struggling with heavy snowfall.
Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for national unity, saying Italy was caught in an "unprecedented vice of frost and earthquakes".
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the rest of the EU stood ready to help because "an earthquake in Italy is an earthquake in Europe".
Teams had to ski and shovel their way towards the site of the avalanche, only reaching the hotel at 04:30 (03:30 GMT) on Thursday.
Snow blocking an approach road held up a vast column of emergency vehicles.
"The upper part of the hotel it's not there anymore - it's full of snow inside the different rooms," said Dr Gianluca Fachetti, who was with the rescue teams.
"But there are several floors and we think most part of the people are on the first floor not the second or third, and it's very difficult but anyway we hope there could be someone still alive."
"There is always hope, if there were no hope the rescuers wouldn't give everything they've got," Fabrizio Curcio, head of Italy's civil protection department, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
His teams, he said, would "continue to do everything possible during the night".
Paying tribute to the dedication of the rescuers, Prime Minister Gentiloni added: "I want to say that we are all holding our breath after what happened last night with the avalanche."
It appears the guests had gathered on the ground floor of the four-star spa hotel, close to the Gran Sasso mountain, to await evacuation following the earthquakes.
Twenty-two guests and seven staff members were registered as being at the hotel, among them children, but rescuers say the actual number could be 35.
The avalanche struck some time between 16:30 and 17:40, based on messages and calls sent by people at the hotel.
It partially brought down the roof and, according to some reports, shifted the building 10m (11 yards) off its foundations.
A guest who was outside the building at the time raised the alarm with his phone.
Giampiero Parete, whose wife and two children are missing, said he had gone to get something from his car: "I was covered by the snow but I managed to get out. The car was not submerged and I waited for the rescuers to arrive."
Mr Parete, who was taken to hospital with a fellow survivor, continued to make phone calls but it reportedly took until 20:00 before his pleas were acted on by the authorities.
A list of 23 names given by La Stampa newspaper suggests that most are Italians but they include a Swiss national and a Romanian.
Three are children aged six, seven and nine, and the oldest person on the list is a man of 60.
Seven of the missing are from the neighbouring region of Marche.
A couple from Marche who are not recorded in La Stampa's list, Marco Vagnarelli and Paola Tomassini, were last heard from at 16:30 on Wednesday, when Marco contacted his brother Fulvio on WhatsApp, Ansa reports. The avalanche had still not started at that point.
Marco had told his brother that their departure from the area was being delayed by the bad weather.
By Jonathan Amos, BBC science correspondent
The Apennines region saw three magnitude-6 tremors between August and October. A succession of quakes like this is often how the geology works.
The big picture is reasonably well understood. Wider tectonic forces in the Earth's crust have led to the Apennines being pulled apart at a rate of roughly 3mm per year - about a 10th of the speed at which your fingernails grow.
But this stress is then spread across a multitude of different faults that cut through the mountains. And this network is fiendishly complicated.
It does now look as though August's event broke two neighbouring faults, starting on one known as the Laga and then jumping across to one called the Vettore.
Then came October with a swathe of quakes that broke the rest of the Vetorre. But the stress, according to the seismologists, wasn't just sent north, it was loaded south as well - south of August's event.
And it's in this zone that we have now seen a series of quakes in recent days. About a dozen magnitude fours and fives.
Read more from Jonathan | The search for survivors of an avalanche at a mountain hotel in Italy has gone into the night, with up to 35 people buried under rubble and snow. | 38685489 |
Supporters of the amendment to the Act for Information say it will help the authorities block sites containing images of child abuse and other illegal material.
But opponents have warned that censorship could later be extended.
The bill still needs to be signed by President Vladimir Putin to become law.
It must also be approved by Russia's upper house, the Federation Council of Russia. Local reports suggest it could come into force by November.
The Russian-language version of Wikipedia took its content offline for a day ahead of the vote claiming the law "could lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the entire internet in Russia, including banning access to Wikipedia in the Russian language."
Local search engine Yandex also signalled concern. It crossed out the word "everything" in its "everything will be found" logo.
"Such decisions should not be taken hastily,"
wrote the service's editor-in-chief
, Elena Kolmanovskaya, on its blog.
"The bill should be discussed in open forum with the participation of the internet industry and technical experts."
The Russian social networking site Vkontakte also posted messages on users' homepages warning that the law posed a risk to its future.
The Moscow Times reported
that deputies amended the law to removed a reference to "harmful information", replacing it with a limited list of forbidden content.
The blacklist is now restricted to sites offering details about how to commit suicide, material that might encourage users to take drugs, images featuring the sexual abuse of children, and pages that solicit children for pornography.
If the websites themselves cannot be shut down, internet service providers and web hosting companies can be forced to block access to the offending material.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev defended the law, saying "people's basic rights and freedoms must be upheld, including the right to information on the one hand and the right to be protected against harmful content on the other hand",
according to a report by Radio Free Europe
.
But critics have complained that once internet providers have been forced to start blocking certain sites, the government may seek court orders to expand the blacklist. | Russia's parliament has voted to approve a law that would give the government the power to force certain internet sites offline without a trial. | 18805039 |
An amendment to the Digital Economy Bill means it will be illegal to use "bots" to bypass limits on the maximum number of tickets that can be bought.
Tickets purchased by bots can appear on secondary websites at prices many times greater than their face value.
A Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesman said the profiteering was "simply not fair".
High profile artists such as Adele and Ed Sheeran have previously criticised the touts and asked their fans not to buy tickets from secondary sites.
Last month, resale site Viagogo was accused of "moral repugnance" for selling tickets to an Ed Sheeran Teenage Cancer Trust gig for up to £5,000.
And an £85 ticket to see Adele at the O2 in London last year was reportedly being sold for £24,840.
As part of the touting crackdown, ministers will accept in full the recommendations of a review by Professor Michael Waterson.
In the report, he suggested ticket sellers should have tougher anti-bot measures in place with a facility to report bot attacks, stronger enforcement of existing consumer rights laws, and the threat of further action if the industry does not act against rogue ticket traders.
Ed Sheeran angry after his tour tickets end up on secondary sites
The government said it wants the big companies in the secondary ticket market to do more to identify ticket touts and differentiate them from individual fans who want to sell tickets for events they can no longer go to.
Heavy metal fans Brian and Jane O'Donoghue aim to go to a gig once a month but say that touts make buying tickets "incredibly frustrating".
They recently paid £250 each to see Black Sabbath in Birmingham's O2 Arena, buying from a secondary website where prices were more than double the face value.
"It was the only way," says Brian, 51, from Hereford. "We weighed up going to see Metallica in Copenhagen instead, which including flights and hotel wasn't much more."
He always tries to buy tickets directly but says they sell out "within minutes".
The pair bought face value tickets for their next concert, Iron Maiden, where they have been told to bring their payment card and photo identification.
"That's the way ahead," Brian says. "Although I think there will be a lot of disappointed people who turn up with just their ticket."
If the companies do not make progress, ministers will seek further action to ensure consumer law is being followed.
The government has been under pressure by a number of celebrities to tackle the problem of ticket touting.
You Me At Six singer Josh Francheschi gave evidence to the committee last year calling for bots to be made illegal saying the fans were the "main losers".
Last year, the use of this technology was made a criminal offence in New York after a report found one bot had bought 1,000 tickets in one minute for a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden.
Jo Dipple, chief executive of music industry representatives UK Music, welcomed the move.
"Massive profit is made by people who are taking value out of the music industry and putting tickets out of the reach of music fans," she said.
"Banning bots is a step towards ensuring the ticketing market for live events works more fairly for gig-goers."
Minister of State for Digital and Culture, Matt Hancock, said: "It's unacceptable that touts are misusing technology to bypass security measures and buy up vast numbers of tickets before real fans get the chance, only to sell them on at rip-off prices.
"It's a growing problem that affects too many people."
In December, an enforcement investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority was launched into any suspected breach by this market.
Mr Hancock added: This profiteering is simply not fair, so we are acting to put fans first and improve the chances of seeing our favourite musicians and sports stars at a reasonable price.
"Ticket sellers need to do more, by improving transparency and ensuring that they are acting in the best interests of consumers and help the market work for everyone." | Online touts who bulk buy tickets and sell them for inflated prices will face unlimited fines under government plans. | 39239133 |
Castle Howard's owners said the auction would help secure the "long-term future" of the estate.
Old Master paintings and 17th Century Italian furniture were among the lots available to the highest bidder.
Ferdinand Bol's Portrait of a Boy sold for £5.2m - almost twice its estimated price tag and a new record for the artist.
The Hon. Nicholas Howard said: "Over the centuries, our family has had the extraordinary good fortune to be the custodians of many great treasures.
"We very much hope that those that were sold today will bring as much joy to their new owners as they have to us and to our ancestors.
"Their sale will help us to secure the future of Castle Howard as it moves into its fourth century."
Castle Howard was designed in 1699 and was the setting for the 1981 TV series Brideshead Revisited.
The house sits in an 8,800-acre estate in the Howardian Hills, north of York. The estate has more than 200 listed buildings and monuments. | Roman antiques and Baroque paintings have been sold by a North Yorkshire stately home for £12m at Sotheby's. | 33458964 |
Borders Buses said it had spent £3.5m on new vehicles and information and ticketing systems in the region.
It has now launched an online survey and will be staging drop-in sessions to assess the views of its passengers.
First Group decided to sell its services earlier this year blaming competition from the Borders Railway.
Sharon Morrison, commercial manager at West Coast Motors, parent company of Borders Buses, said: "We are committed to delivering a reliable bus service which meets the travel needs of our customers.
"Therefore, the best way to find out if our customers are satisfied with the service is to engage with them directly.
"Face to face is always the best way, however we understand work and family obligations make it difficult for people to attend the drop-in sessions so the online survey is a simple and easy way to provide feedback and suggestions."
Future drop-in sessions are planned in Hawick, Melrose, Jedburgh, Selkirk, Kelso and Peebles later this month. | The firm which took over First Group bus routes in the Scottish Borders is asking its customers to help it improve its services. | 40190981 |
Christians, Turkmen, Yazidis, Shabak, Sabian Mandaeans, Bahais, Kakais and Faili Kurds have lived in Iraq for a very long time - some for centuries, others for thousands of years.
Many of them, particularly Christians, Yazidis, Shabak and Turkemen, live in Nineveh, a culturally rich province 250 miles (400km) north-west of Baghdad. The area known as the Nineveh Plain, north-east of the province, is inhabited mostly by these minority groups.
Since the US-led invasion of 2003, Nineveh has been racked by two parallel conflicts - between the central government and extremist Islamist groups, and the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region.
Persecuted under the Ottomans, Saddam Hussein's Baathists and nowadays by jihadists, and facing prejudice and intolerance, some of the smaller minority groups, such as the Shabak and Yazidis, have led a life of secrecy.
This in turn has given rise to misconceptions and suspicions about them, and led to further persecutions.
With the takeover of Mosul, Nineveh's capital, on 10 June by the Islamic State (formerly known as Isis), the minorities in the city fled en masse to the villages in the Nineveh Plain or further north to Kurdish cities. Many of them took up arms alongside the Kurdish forces.
Since then, there has been a steady flow of reports of attacks carried out by the Islamists against minority groups and destruction of their places of worship. The Islamic State itself has posted pictures of dozens of historic and religious sites in Nineveh that it demolished, under the pretext that reverence of such sites is heretical.
Iraq's Christians are of diverse ethnicities and denominations, but the majority are Chaldo-Assyrians who have lived in the region for thousands of years.
Their numbers have fallen from around 1.5 million in 2003 to 350,000-450,000. In Nineveh, they live mainly in the villages of Nineveh Plain, which include the Christian-dominant districts of Al-Hamdaniya (with its famous town of Qaraqosh) and Tel Kef.
One of the most devastating attacks targeting Iraqi Christians happened in 2010 when jihadists stormed a church in Baghdad during Sunday mass killing 52 people.
The Kurdish-speaking Yazidis are an ancient religious minority group that live in northern Iraq, particularly in the Nineveh Plain. A highly secretive group, their origins are subject of ongoing debates, although many consider them to be ethnic Kurds.
Their religion incorporates elements of many faiths, including Zoroastrian. As a result of some of their beliefs and the mystery surrounding their religion, many Muslims and non-Muslims have come to see Yazidis as devil worshippers.
This has led to violent attacks by Islamist groups who consider them infidels. In August 2007 jihadists attacked Yazidi villages in Nineveh, killing between 400 and 700 people.
There are estimated to be around 500,000 Yazidis today, most of them living in the Nineveh Plain in territories disputed between Arabs and Kurds.
A minority group with its distinct language and customs, Shabaks are mostly Shia Muslims and a minority are Sunnis.
It is thought that today there are about 250,000-400,000 Shabaks, almost all in Nineveh.
Some Sunni extremists accuse the predominantly Shia Shabak of being an apostate offshoot of Islam, giving way to violent attacks against them.
Located in areas of disputed ownership between Kurdish and Arab Iraq, the Shabaks have often faced persecution as well as pressure to assimilate by both Arabs and Kurds.
The Turkmen are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq, after the Arabs and Kurds, estimated to number between half a million and 2.5 million.
They are mostly Muslim, roughly divided between the Sunni and Shia traditions. A minority are Catholics.
Turkmen have their own language and customs. They live mainly along the line between the Arab and Kurdish regions - in the provinces of Nineveh (mostly in Tal Afar), Kirkuk, Salaheddin and Diyala, but also in other parts of the country.
Often caught up in the power struggles between the Kurdish region and the central government and under Kurdish and Arab pressure to assimilate, they have also been the target of attacks by jihadists.
Following the Islamic State's takeover of Tal Afar in Nineveh, most of the town's 250,000 population fled to the Kurdish region.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook. | The conflict in Iraq is often framed as a struggle between Shias and Sunnis and Arabs and Kurds - but the country is home to a number of minority groups who find themselves caught in the violence and in political bargains beyond their control. | 28351073 |
The two clubs meet on Wednesday in the second leg of their tie with the winners progressing to the group stages of the tournament.
The losers get a second chance as they enter the draw for the play-offs in the second-tier Confederation Cup.
For the first time continental club matches are being played in midweek.
Mazembe's French coach Hubert Velud described the club's players as "incredible professionals" when he was hired this year.
The clubs also met in a last 16 tie five years ago with Wydad winning 1-0 at home and losing 2-0 away only to be reinstated when Mazembe were disqualified for using an ineligible player.
Wydad went on to finish runners-up, the second best showing by the club from the Moroccan commercial capital after winning the 1992 competition.
Mazembe have been much more successful, winning the premier African club competition in 1967, 1968, 2009, 2010 and last year.
But their African campaign this year has been less convincing.
They needed the help of an own goal to draw 2-2 with Saint George in Ethiopia and took 85 minutes to score the only goal of the second leg through a Jonathan Bolingi penalty.
"Winning trophies is a habit at Mazembe and you are aware of that although I was not given specific objectives when signing a one-year contract," Velud said.
"Continual success in the Champions League is very important to Mazembe because winning the competition secures a place at the Fifa Club World Cup."
Wydad coach, twice Real Madrid manager and former Liverpool and Wales striker John Toshack has mixed emotions ahead of the second leg in Lubumbashi.
"Our first leg performance was among the best since I joined the club two years ago, but it is likely to be a very different game in DR Congo," he said.
"We will be playing on an artificial surface in an atmosphere unique to Africa. What does count in our favour is not conceding at home."
Mazembe have yet to find a successor to Tanzania striker Mbwana Aly Samatta, who has moved to Belgium.
Mazembe and Wydad are among nine Champions League winners seeking group places and just one of the eight second legs does not involve a title-holder.
On Tuesday ex-Birmingham City and Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish guides Egypt's Zamalek as they defend a 2-0 lead over Mouloudia Bejaia in Algeria.
Also on Tuesday A brace by DR Congo-born Idris Mbombo has put Zambian outfit Zesco United in a favourable position as they host Stade Malien of Mali holding a 3-1 advantage.
Another Algerian club Entente Setif, who won the title in 2014, scored two vital away goals in a 2-2 draw in Sudan against Al Merreikh.
On Wednesday Enyimba of Nigeria defend a 3-0 lead over Etoile du Sahel in Tunisia.
The Nigerian lead thanks to a first leg hat-trick from Mfon Udoh, who is the top scorer in the competition so far with seven goals.
Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa hope Colombian Leonardo Castro and Zimbabwean Khama Billiat can transfer sparkling domestic form to Africa as they strive to overcome a 1-0 defeat by AS Vita Club in DR Congo.
Al Ahly of Egypt, under former Tottenham Hotspur manager Martin Jol, enjoy home advantage over Young Africans after drawing 1-1 in Tanzania.
The other tie sees Al Ahly Tripoli take on Asec Mimosas of Ivory Coast at a neutral venue due to the political instability in Libya, the first leg ended 2-0 to the Ivorians. | Holders TP Mazembe of DR Congo must overcome a 2-0 deficit against visiting Wydad Casablanca of Morocco in the African Champions League. | 36071556 |
Jones left St Helens for Exeter at the end of the 2015 season on a two-year deal, but opted to move to Greater Manchester with his pregnant partner.
The 22-year-old can play across the back-row or in the centres, and has made 97 appearances in the 13-man code.
"[He's a] fantastic addition to our squad," owner Marwan Koukash tweeted.
The England Knights international was a Grand Final winner during his time at Saints, helping Nathan Brown's side to the 2014 Super League title. | Salford Red Devils have signed free agent Josh Jones for the 2016 Super League season, following his exit from rugby union side Exeter Chiefs. | 35313962 |
So seriously, in fact, that they can come across as rather pompous to a British reader. When it comes to a presidential election they seem to believe that their endorsements are of huge significance and that their words will be weighed with utmost seriousness by their readers.
Well now we know how wrong that is because just about every major newspaper either backed Hillary Clinton or at least failed to endorse Donald Trump - and that went for papers who had faithfully swung behind Republican candidates in the past.
Now both the newspapers and the rest of the mainstream media are waking up to the fact that their influence may be as nothing compared with that of Facebook.
In 1992, a British tabloid newspaper claimed that it was "the Sun wot won it" when the Conservatives pulled off a surprise election victory. In the United States, some are asking whether the social network pulled off the same trick for Mr Trump.
The argument goes like this. A total of 156 million Americans are Facebook members and, according to recent research, two-thirds of them get news on the site.
Now that news may often come from mainstream media outlets - perhaps from papers endorsing Mrs Clinton - but what you end up seeing will be determined by who your friends are and what they share.
That's where the idea of a filter bubble comes into play - those inclined to vote for Mr Trump will only see stories that reflect their view of the world and the same will apply to those of a liberal mindset.
Now you could say the same filtering has always applied - liberal people tended to read liberal newspapers, conservatives got their views reflected back in what they read.
The difference was that most editors have tried to do two things - present at least some alternative views and make sure that the facts in any story stand up to scrutiny.
Neither applies on Facebook. The News Feed algorithm serves you up whatever it thinks you and your friends want to believe and it certainly does not do any fact-checking.
Stories that accused the Clintons of murder or maintained that Barack Obama was a Muslim will have cropped up in the feeds of millions of people inclined to support Mr Trump.
This cuts both ways - a made-up quote from Mr Trump saying in 1998 that he might one day run as a Republican because "they're the dumbest group of voters in the country" is still being widely shared on social media by his opponents.
Both the Democrats and Republicans have long made ample use of Facebook - indeed it was the Obama campaign of 2008 that pioneered the use of social media in elections.
But for a Trump campaign that saw much of the mainstream media as hostile and biased, both Facebook and Twitter offered a powerful way of getting its message direct to voters unchallenged by any pesky journalists.
If Facebook or something similar had not existed, would Donald Trump still be heading for the White House?
That is hard to say but what does seem likely is that social media served to polarise views in what was already a bitter election and may have encouraged a few hesitant voters to come out for Mr Trump.
This makes Facebook's claims that it just a technology platform, rather than a hugely powerful media company with Mark Zuckerberg as editor-in-chief, look very thin indeed. But there are few signs that the company is ready to face up to this heavy responsibility or engage in some serious soul-searching.
On Wednesday, my colleague Jane Wakefield went to meet the company's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer, who was on a visit to London. She asked him what role he thought social media had played.
Here is his extraordinarily unilluminating response: "It's hard to speculate. Our angle is that people can communicate and share what they want to talk about - that's what our endgame is."
Mind you, the editor-in-chief has shared some thoughts.
In a Facebook post adorned with a "feeling hopeful" emoji and a photo of him holding his baby daughter as he watched election coverage, Mr Zuckerberg told us that he'd been thinking about "all the work ahead of us to create the world we want for our children".
That apparently means "curing all disease, improving education, connecting everyone and promoting equal opportunity" and that will take a long time, and stretch beyond any presidency.
It was all very Californian, but the comment writers seemed to love it. "Thank you for your awesome comments and for being socially responsible leveraging your influence for good," was a typical response.
But no word of reflection from Mr Zuckerberg on how he had "leveraged" his influence over the way Americans understood the presidential campaign and whether its impact had been positive for the democratic process.
Media barons from William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch have sought to shape politics to their will. But they have revelled in their powers.
Mr Zuckerberg seems determined to pretend he is no more or less influential than any of his 1.6 billion readers sitting in front of the TV and watching the world change.
Read more:
What Trump means for tech
View from shell-shocked Silicon Valley
New Zealand immigration site's traffic surges
Obama to welcome Trump to White House | In the United States, newspapers take their responsibilities to the democratic process very seriously. | 37936225 |
He told me that he and his wife were undecided about whether they should allow their two daughters to watch the presidential debate because of the subject matter that was likely to be discussed.
I asked Robert if it was OK to tweet what he had just told me, and he agreed. Very quickly dozens of people contacted me to say they were wrestling with the same dilemma.
A presidential debate. Civic engagement, for goodness sake! And parents are afraid to let their children watch?
We've gone way lower than any limbo dancer would dare. This is unbelievably sad. I totally get that kids might not want to watch because they might find it mind-numbing and would rather undergo root canal treatment.
But because their parents are worried about the sexually graphic nature of what the two candidates might be discussing? What have we become?
Politics has always been a contact sport and, yes, part of the fun of reporting is when it gets a bit nasty and personal. But this was something else.
Two hours before last night's debate got under way, Mr Trump conducted a Facebook Live with three women who claim that Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted them and one who had been raped by a man who was represented in court by Hillary Clinton during her public defender years.
The top secret plan, confirmed by his surrogate-in-chief Rudy Giuliani, was to bring them into the elevated family box that each candidate had been allocated. That way, Bill Clinton would have to walk past them on the debate stage before battle commenced. And they would then be in Hillary Clinton's eye-line throughout.
You've got to hand it to Donald Trump - he knows how to make good television. All that time spent hosting The Apprentice wasn't for nothing.
It would have been road-crash television of the most lurid order - which of course is exactly what he wanted to achieve. Unfortunately those non-partisan spoilsports from the Commission on Presidential Debates vetoed the idea once they got wind of it.
The idea of the debate is to discuss policy, the commission seems to think, not to go in for ritual humiliation and intimidation as though it were some gameshow. The women had to take their place in the wider audience.
But Donald Trump ensured they got the publicity he wanted.
The Trump strategy seemed to be while you might think he was bad after hearing him brag about grabbing women by the - oh let's just say the word he used - pussy, but that Bill Clinton is way, way worse. So he recycled all the claims, as though somehow Hillary Clinton was culpable for her husband's actions.
She didn't bite. She simply didn't engage.
I'm not sure why I'm surprised (and maybe a little bit depressed) at any of this. After all, so far during this campaign I have discussed - on air - such key political topics topics as menstruation and penis size.
The Republican leadership had been urging Trump not to go down this path.
First, they thought there was no polling evidence to suggest that this would do anything to help his sagging poll numbers - and actually might send independents and women Clinton's way in sympathy.
Secondly, it would be a distraction from the messages that really were connecting with people - on trade, jobs, healthcare, national security.
For what it's worth, I thought he did really well on those subjects last night. He was much more focused in his attacks on Clinton. She looked vulnerable and gave wordy answers.
And on his central message - that if you yearn for change don't entrust it to someone who has 30 years to bring that about, and hasn't - he scored a number of direct hits.
But is anyone discussing that today? Is anyone talking about replacing Obamacare? Or renegotiating trade deals? Or jobs?
No,it's the exchanges over sex. And Trump's pledge to lock his opponent up if he becomes president.
As my bureau chief (who was Middle East bureau chief before he came to the US) tweeted last night, who says Donald Trump doesn't understand Middle-Eastern politics?
Is this what Donald Trump wanted? Has he got the coverage he sought? Maybe it is. But it doesn't seem to have taken him any closer to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. | It was just before the debate started and I was chatting to my friend and opposite number at ITV news, Robert Moore. | 37613938 |
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